


history keeps pulling me down (one grand moment)

by words-writ-in-starlight (Gunmetal_Crown)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Chant of Light, Dancing, Dancing Lessons, Dragon Age Quest: Protect Clan Lavellan, F/M, Fluff, Halward Pavus' A+ Parenting, Humor, Lyrium Withdrawal, Missing Scene, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Shovel Talk, other characters to be added - Freeform, the ADHD mishmash product of a writer with a lot of feelings about DA:I, well missing scenes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-11-10 19:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11133666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gunmetal_Crown/pseuds/words-writ-in-starlight
Summary: Stories and songs rarely tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  These are some of the messy bits that get trimmed away.





	1. a heavy heart to carry

**Author's Note:**

> I have no self-control! And so here we are.
> 
> What I _do_ have though is nine of these chapters written and ready to post, and since I am taking some time off from school to sort myself out, I'm actually putting myself on a posting schedule! This story will update on Wednesdays, while [my Animorphs series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/650150) will update on Saturdays or Sundays. My ongoing fics (YES, including [things we lost in the fire](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7196675/chapters/16332587) and [shout it out](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7352572/chapters/16700983) which, listen, I love all of the people who have stuck out that fucking hiatus more than LIFE) will be updated on either Saturdays/Sundays or Wednesdays, and just take the place of the other fic I would be posting that day. ...trust me, there is a method to the madness.
> 
> Right, title is from the song Leave My Body by Florence + The Machine, which is _perfect_ for the Inquisitor. All right, I hope y'all enjoy!

Cullen stood at the edge of the camp, face turned into the wind, and took care not to open his mouth.  It was bad enough to smell the ash of Haven driven before the storm, he didn’t want it caught in his teeth, too.  The blizzard was worse further down on the mountain, but here above the treeline the wind was unbroken, whipping sheets of snow and ice ahead of it to scour the faces of those standing watch.

Formally speaking, Cullen was not on watch, no more than anyone else.  Plenty of eyes were turned back toward the ruined Chantry hall invisible below, watching for the rising red tide of the army to push out of the snow again.  But Cullen could not rest, and couldn’t stand another moment of trying to plan, and so he was here, looking for any trace of a green glint in the dark.

It was quite hopeless.  Cullen could barely make out the treeline, let alone any detail.

Cullen had never had _maybes_ , before, or if he had, he had never known it.  He had orders, and there was little room for _maybe_ there.

He had never lost a _maybe_ before, either, and it hurt with the thick, sullen pain of an internal wound.  The Herald—Rhosyn— _Lavellan_ could have been something to him, maybe, with her stubborn mouth and sarcastic wit and the permanent sun-burnished red on her raw-boned cheeks as she talked with him about the troops.  If he had ever gotten up the courage to do something about it, to so much as ask leave to use her familiar name, Lavellan could have been something to him.  He would have been whatever she asked, Commander or friend or…more, and been glad to do it.  He could see it as perfectly as he could see the memory of her eyes, steady and clear, blue as a winter sky in her fear-pale face as she agreed to sacrifice herself to ensure the retreat of the Inquisition.  She was usually so stoic, determined to show no sign of the strain that her sudden status as savior had thrust upon her shoulders.  Seeing her go paper white and take a deep breath to steady herself, before she turned to demand if Cullen could evacuate the refugees in time, had made his chest ache under the weight of his armor.

“Maybe you’ll find a way,” he had said—a lie, but a kind one.  Lavellan had smiled at him, and it was small and sad, like the way she had smiled that first day, when it was all still a strange and terrible dream.  And here he was, carrying out his end of their shared falsehood.  Maybe she would find a way, and maybe he would find her, afterward.

He had some warning of an approaching soldier, their armor a quiet and familiar clatter even with their footsteps muffled by the snow. 

“Commander,” Cassandra said, her accent thick with weariness and strain even though her stance was as firm as ever.

“Seeker,” he returned politely as she stepped up beside him.

Cassandra had become something of a comrade in arms, lately, between the fierce protectiveness of a sister and the confidence in his skills of a rival, and he trusted her—not only by his side in battle, but to see right from wrong.  She was the most loyally devoted Andrastean he had ever met, the ideal Seeker, but she had carved herself away from the Chantry when she believed it was necessary and never looked back, ready to burn the entire edifice down around them if it was what was needed to save lives and do what was right.  It was what Cullen had imagined all Templars to be, as a young man just joining the Order.  Cassandra wore her faith emblazoned across her armor, the all-seeing eye of the Inquisition— _we are here and we will not be blind to your faults_.

It made her restful.  Cassandra had never met a falsehood she liked, nor a hard truth she wasn’t willing to face.  She had passed calm, frank judgement on him for Kirkwall, and in the same unflinching tone had held out redemption in her other hand.  And, even more precious, she had offered the easy companionship of a fellow soldier, someone there to guard his back and call him out on his mistakes—a thing he had sorely missed.

She stood beside him in silence for a few long moments, looking down the mountainside.  All of them were ruffled, even Cassandra, with soot smudged over her unscarred cheek and her braid beginning to unravel in places, and they all wore the exhaustion of the last hours stamped grey under their eyes. 

“Perhaps she survived,” Cassandra said at last.

Cullen didn’t answer, because to disagree was to admit that Lavellan was dead, and to agree felt too much like false hope, a rickety bridge with a long drop at the bottom.

“How are the others?” he finally asked.

“Tired,” Cassandra said.  “As are we all.  Leliana and Josephine are doing what they can to aid the healers, but I am not much given to the gentler arts.  I believe that most of us are still in shock.”

“The Templars?”

“Acutely aware of how narrowly the Herald rescued them from a fate worse than death, and feeling quite loyal to the Inquisition,” Cassandra said dryly.  “This has done wonders for any distrust between our own forces—mages included—and the Templars who joined us.”  She gave a rough laugh, a bare thread of genuine humor in it.  “The bonds forged in this battle will hold us together for a long time, I believe.”

They fell back into silence for a few moments before Cullen said, quietly, “I was considering taking a small force to search for stragglers.  Anyone who might have fallen behind when we fled.”

He expected Cassandra to take down his suggestion with the same methodical logic she did anything she found flawed.  Wished for it, even, to have this decision taken from his hands.  Instead she said, as evenly as ever, “I will accompany you.” 

Cullen looked to Cassandra sharply, and she was still looking down to where Haven’s ruin lay, cloaked by darkness and buried in a tomb of snow and ice.  Her lips were set into a thin line, her face cast in silhouette by the light of the fires behind them—she looked unearthly, immortal, a hero of legend, perhaps.  A warrior of the faithful, haloed in red and gold with the wind ruffling her short-cropped hair.

“You will?”

“I think, Commander, that you do not have enough faith in yourself,” she said after a moment of consideration.  “You have done enough wrong to know right when you see it, but you do not trust your instincts.  It is something to work on.”  Another pause, another moment of Cassandra cast as a religious icon to be mounted on a Chantry wall.  “There is no shame in grief, nor in hope, Cullen.” 

She nodded firmly then, rolling her shoulders back and drawing herself up as Cullen stood speechless.  Turning back toward the camp, she clapped a gauntleted hand on his shoulder and said, “I will find a few people to come with us.  Perhaps the Tevinter mage.  Fire would be of use to us.  Wait here for a moment.”

Cullen nodded in mute agreement and resumed his watch of the mountainside as she left for the main fire at the center of the camp.  His exhaustion, or more likely the crash after the adrenaline high of the battle, was beginning to catch up with him, he thought absently, his vision starting to play tricks on him in the darkness—a glimmer of green among the snow, another glint like fire.  After this sweep, a last check to see if, somehow, Lavellan had performed another miracle, he would rest, if he could.  He would see to it that Cassandra rested, too, and Josephine, even Leliana if he could manage it.  There were too many vital decisions to be made to risk sleep deprivation clouding their judgement.

Cassandra returned with the Tevinter mage who had come to warn them, and the Bull.  It was a decent assortment, in case they found someone wounded or overcome by exposure—Bull could probably carry half their wounded up the mountain on his back if the mood took him.

“Leliana is taking Blackwall and a few others in the opposite direction,” Cassandra said.

“So,” the Tevinter mage—Dorian, Cullen dimly recalled, although he didn’t remember when he had learned the man’s name in the midst of the shouting and battle and dragonfire.  “We’re going to see if the Herald got out?”

“We’re doing a search for any lost Inquisition members or civilians who might have fallen behind,” Cullen said sternly.

“Mmhm,” Dorian said, fingering his staff affectionately.  It was bladed, a wicked glaive with a focusing crystal shot with gold fault lines on the other end, and he spun it casually before grounding it.  “You’re the Knight-Commander?”

“Just Commander,” Cullen corrected, a hard note in his tone.  “And you’re Magister…?”

“Altus,” Dorian shot back.  Then he cracked a smile as Cullen arched an eyebrow.  “Point taken, Commander.  Dorian Pavus, at your service.  You can call me Dorian.”

“Cullen,” he said, nodding.  Then he turned, to look at Cassandra, who was observing the mountainside with narrowed eyes.  “Any suggestions, Seeker?”

She didn’t nod, didn’t look away, merely pointed.  “I would suggest there, along our tracks.  I hear wolves.”

“I thought I’d been imagining that,” Bull observed, far from his usual jovial self.

“Unfortunately not,” Cassandra said. 

“Imagine things a lot, do you?” Dorian asked, all needle-pointed teeth and good humor.  “I _had_ heard that Qunari were prone to madness.”

“Listen, ‘Vint--”

Cullen ground his teeth together, feeling the urge to growl in frustration, but Cassandra beat him there, drawing her sword in a single swift arch and gesturing sharply with it.  It was a strange blade, some pale metal that glinted with red at the edges, that Lavellan had brought back after a particularly hectic venture in the Hinterlands.  The slide of metal unsheathed silenced the burgeoning argument like a palisade dropping between the two men.

“Enough!” she snapped, accent thick and crisp as glass, and shook her sword at their tracks, being swiftly obscured by the wind.  “If you cannot speak peaceably, you will not speak!  We have a job to do!”

“She’s right,” Cullen said, unclenching his jaw with an effort.  “You two can take cheap shots at each other’s countries later.”

Cassandra didn’t wait for compliance before she started forward.  “Commander, with me,” she ordered.  “Bull, guard our backs in case those wolves come any closer.  Dorian, any light you can provide would be of use.”

“Yes, Seeker,” Bull rumbled, dropping back.  Dorian mutely gave a twist of his wrist, summoning a sphere of flame barely larger than Cullen’s fist that shed bright gold light in a radius around him.  Cullen fingered his sword, but didn’t draw it, staying on Cassandra’s unguarded left—she had left her shield in the camp.  If they came upon more than one person in need of being carried, it would be too much weight to bear both full armor and a shield in addition to them.

They reached the distant arm of the mountains that defended their camp from the worst of the storm without incident, and without success.  No survivors had been found, but neither had any bodies—Cullen was willing to take the victory.  The wolves had faded, either with distance or with loss of interest, and weapons had been put away, but the storm grew worse as they descended, until they reached the blessed shelter of the arm’s leeward side.  Cassandra and Cullen had targeted it without discussion—if the protection from the wind was a relief to them, it would be the obvious place for a lost soul to take a breath before seeking the camp higher uphill.  Their search party swept down the arm with Dorian’s focusing crystal held high to give them enough light, but there was no one to find.

And then there was a voice.

“Andraste,” the voice mumbled, the dim and muddled sound of hypothermia and exhaustion, “Maker, fucking—fucking Elgar’non, whoever the fuck’s listening, just.  Shit.  Just a little farther.”

“There!” Cassandra said, and they hurried forward, toward the edge of the protecting arm.

“Someone made it through this shitshow of a storm?” Dorian asked.  “ _Vishante kaffas_ , what are you people made of?”

“Around the rock face,” Cullen said, breaking into a run.  Green light flashed across the snow in front of them, accompanied by another muttered curse.  Cullen’s heart stopped, and Cassandra made a breathless noise beside him, and they rounded the rock face into the bitter, brutal wind, and—

“There she is!” he called, and reached the Herald just before she could collapse face-first into the snow.

“Andraste’s blessed sword,” Cassandra murmured as Cullen tried not to touch Lavellan’s skin with his armor.  “She’s alive.”

“Barely,” he said as Cassandra dropped to her knees beside them.  “Hold onto her a moment.”  Cassandra did, pulling the bow and quiver from her back and handing them off to Bull, and Cullen yanked off his cloak to wrap around Lavellan’s shoulders.  Her thin archer’s armor was nowhere near enough to protect her from this storm, and all her skin that he could see was white with cold.  Her usual blood-red lip paint—her war paint, she called it with a wry laugh when Josephine asked—was gone, rubbed off during the battle or during her march, and her lips were a worrying shade of blue, even the legendary Dalish resilience crumbling in the face of Corypheus and the biting, merciless mountain wind.

“Cullen,” Cassandra said urgently, “we have to get her out of the wind.”

“I’ll take her,” he said, tucking his cloak more tightly around Lavellan—the cold _hurt_ without it, but the sharp pain in his chest at the thought of her wandering hurt more.  He shifted, then slid one arm under Lavellan’s knees, the other under her shoulder, and lifted, twisting to put his back to the worst of the wind.  One of her hands was still visible, her marked palm upwards, and the green light hissed and spat sullenly for a moment before it dimmed.

“Come,” Cassandra said, and led the way back around to the lee of the rock arm.  Cullen followed, with Dorian at his side holding up his staff for light, and Bull interposed his bulk between them and the worst of the wind without any apparent concern.

“She’s not shivering,” Cullen said as they slowed behind the rock face.  Lavellan was limp, completely unconscious in his arms, and the only sign he had that she still lived was the way her breathing stirred the fur ruff of his cloak.  She was small—Cullen had managed to forget how small she was.  All confident good humor and quick wit, it was easy to mistake Lavellan for someone bigger, but she was delicately built in the way of her people, light as a bundle of bird bones, barely coming up to his chin. 

Cassandra made a low, triumphant sound, and yanked a small flask out of her belt.  “Here,” she said.  “It’s my last one.”

Cassandra was another person who Cullen often thought of as toweringly large, but she had to stretch onto her toes and steady herself on Cullen’s shoulder in order to tip the elfroot potion between Lavellan’s lips.  Blue light flickered like lightning over Lavellan’s skin, and Cullen knew the moment it took effect—the deathly pale tinge faded, and with a shudder she began to shiver again.  A low mumble, worn but urgent, escaped her lips and she stirred.

“Keep her calm,” Cassandra ordered, and rounded fiercely on Dorian and Bull.  “Do either of you have any more potions?”

“I’m afraid not,” Dorian said.  He was shivering as well, although his light was steady.

“I gave mine to the Chargers,” Bull said.  Cassandra’s lips thinned, but she nodded briskly. 

Lavellan stirred again, with more determination, her mind trying to override the damage to her body and drag her back to alertness.  Cullen tightened his grip on her, tipping his head down so that he could speak quietly to her without his voice being drowned out in the storm.

“Herald,” he murmured.  “You’re safe.  We’ve got you, you made it.”  Lavellan settled, and Cullen couldn’t tell if it was because she had heard him or because she was simply too tired to fight anymore.  She turned her head to the side, tipped toward him, her black hair frozen in places where her skin had been warm enough to melt the snow before the cold got the better of her again.  Cullen looked up at Cassandra, who was eyeing the climb back to the camp consideringly.  “If we don’t have any more potions, we have to make a run for the camp,” he said.  “She needs real care, from a healer.”

“We could send someone to get one,” Cassandra said, although she didn’t seem particularly fond of the idea.  “And keep the Herald here, out of the worst of the storm.”

Cullen was shaking his head before Cassandra could finish.  “It would take too long.”

“I know,” Cassandra sighed.  “You will have to carry her, there is nowhere else to stop on the way to the camp.”  Cullen silently arched a brow at her.  “Good,” she said, businesslike.  “Follow me.”

The march back up the mountain seemed longer, much longer, although the storm was beginning to lose its teeth at last and Lavellan was a light burden.  She stirred, from time to time, and Cullen spoke to her until she stilled, meaningless reassurances, more than once a scrap of verse from the Chant of Light.  Cassandra joined him in those, the pure strong note of faith adding steel to their spines, even Dorian managing to add his voice to the Canticle of Benedictions—Cullen couldn’t stand to recite the more solemn passages he usually preferred.  Lavellan should hear only good things, only light and courage, if she could hear them at all.  Besides, they seemed to suit her— _blessed are those who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter._

The light of the campfires was a relief almost as intense as finding Lavellan in the first place.  She had fallen still, pale with cold again, and Cassandra wasted no time in striding forward, shouting for help as Cullen made for the tent nearest to the large central fire.  There was a staging area some distance away, where the wounded and their caretakers could have more space, but Cullen didn’t need to be a healer to know that Lavellan needed the warmth.  Mother Giselle appeared at Cassandra’s elbow as Dorian and the Bull drew close to the fire, murmuring explanations to Josephine and Leliana, who had returned without any apparent success in her search.

“Set her there, on that cot,” Mother Giselle ordered, and Cullen did as he was told.  Setting Lavellan down hurt—he knew she needed help he couldn’t provide, but some part of his mind insisted that she would dissolve into snow and ice the moment he turned his back.

“Can you help her?” he asked.

Mother Giselle looked up at him, something indefinable in her gaze.  She didn’t particularly approve of him, Cullen knew—whether because of what happened in Kirkwall or because he abandoned the Order, he didn’t care, it was all the same result even if the mental calculus was different—but she answered him.  “Yes.  You did right, to warm her and bring her here quickly.  I will return your cloak to you when blankets and potions are brought to replace it.”

“Keep it as long as you need, Revered Mother,” Cullen said.  Then he lingered, trying to keep his worry off his face and knowing that he failed.

“Well?” Mother Giselle said, raising her eyebrows.  “I will inform you when her condition changes, Commander.”

Cullen paused, then nodded with poor grace.  “Thank you.”

He retreated to the other side of the fire, where Leliana and Cassandra were speaking in tones almost shaking with relief, and where Josephine had produced a miraculously unmarred white handkerchief to muffle her tears.

“She’s alive,” Josephine gasped.  “I can’t believe it.”

“Blessed are the righteous,” Leliana said in her soft accent.

Cassandra smiled, adding her voice to the verse. “The lights in the shadow.”

“In their blood the Maker’s will is written,” Cullen finished softly.

And tonight, after all the deaths that Haven had claimed, the Maker willed that Lavellan would live.


	2. to age without mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the attempt to save Clan Lavellan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from "Oblivion" by Bastille.
> 
> Although [ThoseWhoFavorFire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoseWhoFavorFire/pseuds/ThoseWhoFavorFire) recommended that I title it "I just stabbed my best friend in the gut" since I seem to enjoy her suffering so much. In case you were curious about the kind of person I am.

“Cullen,” Cassandra called, and he came to a halt as he crossed the great hall.  Repairs were coming along well on the whole of Skyhold, scaffolding stretching up the face of more walls than not, but as more and more refugees and pilgrims swelled their ranks, Cullen was getting used to checking daily with Harrit on the progress of weapons and armor for their forces.  Harrit was tolerant of his visits, but nothing more—he was understanding of both the necessity and Cullen’s desire to stay apprised, but the man was rarely more than tolerant of invaders in his domain.  Save for the Inquisitor, whose perpetual gifts of fine metals and verbal sparring seemed to have earned her some limited good will.

“Yes?” Cullen asked once Cassandra reached his side.

“Have you seen the Inquisitor today?” she asked, the scar curving down her jaw showing the tension in her muscles.

Cullen generally prided himself on his ability to appear unruffled, but at that he arched his eyebrows in surprise.  “I beg your pardon,” he said in an undertone, catching Cassandra’s elbow and steering her into the anteroom of Josephine’s office.  Cassandra cooperated with him, and that only because his grip was light and immediately released—he wasn’t unaware.  “Do you mean to say you’ve _lost_ Inquisitor Lavellan?”

“I have not _‘lost’_ her,” Cassandra ground out, eyes snapping with frustration, shoulders taut and spine stiff.  “She is still in Skyhold.  However,” she said reluctantly, “we are not certain precisely _where_ in Skyhold.”

“Why do you need her?” Cullen asked, concern tracing down his spine from the weight in his chest.  “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing urgent, no,” Cassandra said, waving a hand, and Cullen was more reassured by the steadiness of her gaze than her words.  “I merely wanted to discuss the latest arrivals with her--”

“Orlesians,” Cullen said darkly, and Cassandra nodded.  “And you haven’t been able to find her?  Have you asked Leliana?”

Cassandra gave a huff that sounded very much like a laugh, although he doubted she would admit it.  “I thought I would wait until I _did_ need the Inquisitor urgently before I brought out the cavalry, as it were.”

“You know Leliana will know you’re looking for her.”

“I’m sure,” Cassandra said, the absolute confidence of one Hand in another.  “So I should very much like to find the Inquisitor before the cavalry brings itself out.”

Cullen snorted in wry amusement, then sighed.  “Fair enough.  Have you asked Dorian, or checked the Herald’s Rest?”

“And her quarters,” Cassandra confirmed.  “I thought you might search the battlements while I check the Undercroft and the dungeons.”

“All right,” Cullen said with a nod.  “I just came from the Undercroft, she’s not there.  But if we can’t find her…”  He frowned and tried to order his thoughts, to turn the vague prickle of unease into words.  “She might not want to be found,” he finally said.  “We should let her be, if she needs it—it’s been a stressful few weeks for her.”

Cassandra inclined her head.  “I don’t intend to mobilize the army to search for the Inquisitor, Commander,” she said.  “Especially not if she’s just trying to find a few moment’s without dignitaries crawling every available wall.”

Cullen gave a quiet chuckle at that.  “As you say, Seeker.  I’ll see what I can find out.”

“Thank you, Commander.”  Cassandra sketched a teasing salute to him as he stepped out of the anteroom, back into the perpetual murmur of sound echoing off the great hall’s stone and the splash of light spilling through the windows.  Cullen turned toward the main doors and the crowd parted for him like linen around a sharp blade—courteous, almost intimidated, but nowhere near as deferential as the way they responded to the Inquisitor.  He didn’t blame her for her distaste for the whole affair.

The citadel, he thought as he descended to the main courtyard, was in much better repair than it had been when the shattered Inquisition limped through its gates, at their leader’s heels.  She had carried herself like a leader even then, like a general at the head of an army, Cullen thought.  He’d thought it at the time, too.  It had been something not unlike a religious experience to see her standing at the edge of a valley, dawn alight behind her shoulder and her right hand outstretched toward the high walls of Skyhold.  And that wasn’t just him waxing poetic on the matter, either.  As far as Cullen was concerned, Cassandra was the closest thing anyone currently had to a religious authority, and she had been the first one to say it out loud.

He was pretty sure Josephine had quietly commissioned a painting of that exact scene.  Cullen didn’t need one—the image was emblazoned in his mind’s eye like heraldry, although probably for different reasons than most.  The figure on the cusp of the valley had seemed leagues away from the bristling woman Cassandra had first brought out of the cells at Haven, a cornered wolf ready to lash out at anything that looked like a threat.  Lavellan was a leader, regardless of what she believed of herself.  Always in such a rush to pass the credit off to the brave soldiers of the Inquisition, to her loyal Inner Circle, to her clever advisors, to anyone but herself, even though the core of iron strength that had held her up, snarling, that first day at the Breach had carried them all through fire and ice to their new home.  To Skyhold.

Lavellan had never been more honestly herself than when she had been standing there, with the light behind her and her pale eyes steadily fixed ahead.

When they had arrived, Skyhold had been bleak—majestic, to be sure, but cold and empty, furniture splintered and walls crumbled.  A tragedy written in stone and glass, Leliana had said, and Varric had scribbled it down on a scrap of paper as the Inquisitor hummed absently, smiling.  Lavellan had never seen Skyhold as a ruin—instead she had seen shelter, sanctuary.  Home.  Her pleased grin every time she returned to find some new minute repair completed made Cullen’s heart hurt.  It was as if she had never had a place to be welcomed by before, a thought that ached and stung like a fresh wound.  He knew for a fact that Josephine and Cassandra had leveraged that same smile ruthlessly in order to keep the workers motivated—and to great success, too.  The Inquisitor was much beloved by her people, even if she seemed largely unaware of the fact.

Cullen’s absent musing carried him to his tower without thought, and he paused there for a moment, considering.  If Lavellan had disappeared so thoroughly—well, no.  No one disappeared in a place like Skyhold, no matter how large the fortress, even with construction turning every hall into a freshly crafted labyrinth.  But Inquisitor Lavellan was crafty, with a rogue’s mind for slipping a tail.  She would know how to target the least populated areas if she wanted to be unfound for a time.  He wouldn’t find her idly wandering the battlements.

Cullen’s gaze caught on the ladder to his quarters above, pure cold late winter sunlight pouring through from the hole he hadn’t yet managed to tend to fixing.

If it was him, seeking a moment alone, he would have gone up.

He checked four tower rooms in various states of decay and repair before he found himself in the upper room of one of the corner tower, closest to the Herald’s Rest, making a mental note to ensure that the ladders were in good repair if their Inquisitor intended to make a habit of this behavior.  He’d had reason to regret that he’d given up the security of the Templar armor of late, among other things, but at least his Inquisition gear was better for ladder climbing.

“Commander,” the Inquisitor said as he rose to his feet at the crown of the tower.  She hadn’t turned to see him, arms crossed on the stone expanse of a crenellation and the wind lifting her dark hair in wild tendrils behind her.

“Inquisitor,” he said, stepping forward.  The wind was strong up here, tasting of snow as it shuddered up the mountainside to nip cleanly at the skin.  It wasn’t quite cold, down within the walls where they were cradled by whatever old power had raised these stones, but up here, Cullen was glad for the warmth of his cloak.  He wondered if the Inquisitor was cold, in her plain brown and blue gear, a simple leather jerkin and breeches with a red scarf at her throat—she wasn’t even wearing the gloves that she usually used to conceal the mark on her palm.  Her hands looked pale, almost stiff with the bite of the wind.

“What did you need?” she asked, hand flicking up to her face before she turned to him.

Cullen frowned and stepped forward in concern—Lavelland’s eyes were clear and glittering, her lips thin and the memory of dampness catching sunlight on one cheek.

“No, I don’t—Cassandra said she hadn’t seen you today,” he said, feeling suddenly like an intruder, as if he had trespassed on something private, and as if the wordless demand that rose through his chest to take her hands in his own and warm them until the pallor disappeared was a further unwelcome invasion.  He did not reach out, holding his arms at his side and forcing the impulse away stubbornly.  “I was concerned, I came to look for you.”

Lavellan laughed, sounding far too fragile.  “Have you been over the entire battlements looking for me, Commander?”

Cullen should leave, and he knew he should leave, that would be the correct thing to do.  The Inquisitor was his commanding officer and it was not his place to bother her and she…she had been crying, alone on the battlements, with no one to comfort her.  Cullen did not leave, found he couldn’t stand the thought of turning away.

“Yes,” he said, offering her a faint smile.  He stepped up to stand at her side, at the crenellated wall, and she turned to watch him as he moved.  “May I--”  He stopped and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, then sighed and lowered his arm.  “It’s my hope that we could be called friends,” he said, painfully aware of how stiff his words were.  “And that you would feel able to share your…concerns with me, if you wished.”

Lavellan glanced up at him, folding her arms on the wall.  “I like to think we’re friends too, Cullen,” she said quietly. 

“Then…”  Cullen hesitated, then, bold, even presumptuous, he asked, “How are you holding up?”

The breath that slid between Lavellan’s lips shook and she looked away from him, blinking rapidly.  It hurt, the trembling breath like a knife between his ribs, and Cullen ached to protect her, to tuck her into his arms and make her laugh until there was no trace of this hollow grief—to fix this, somehow, for her.  Lavellan deserved only the best things.  She was always giving away recognition and honor like she didn’t know how to hold them without cutting herself on the edges, and it always made Cullen smile, wondering and confused.  As if anyone was so oblivious, as if anyone was fooled by her wry humility and self-effecting words.

As if anyone could fail to see a hero when she stood in front of them.

There was a delicate sniff, and Lavellan cleared her throat.

“It’s just, um.”  She paused, and her hands closed into fists on the stone wall, so tight that her knuckles would have gone pale if they weren’t already white with cold.  “I can’t believe they’re gone,” she murmured, and if he hadn’t been standing so close, listening with such care, Cullen might have mistaken her voice for another whisper of wind.

“Ah,” Cullen said softly, and leaned forward against the wall beside her.  He felt an instant tidal swell of guilt that he hadn’t known at once. 

Clan Lavellan, the one time Josephine’s skill had been most needed and yet had failed.  The ambassador had not wept when she brought back the news, but only through sheer force of will.  When the Inquisitor had ended the meeting in a shaken voice before vanishing through the war room doors, Josephine’s tears had spilled over and she had sobbed into Leliana’s shoulder, clutching the purple cloak in both hands. 

“I should have known the count would never act in time,” Lavellan said, and her voice was low and steady and _raw_.  “Not to save a Dalish clan.  I should have sent your soldiers, diplomacy be damned.  _I_ should have gone, myself, I should have--”  Her voice cracked and broke off, and Lavellan brought her left fist down on the stone, so hard that the weather-worn rock scraped her skin and draw blood.

The spatter of red on the grey stone jolted Cullen into motion, and he made an abortive gesture as if to catch her hand in his.  “Inquisitor,” he said, his voice almost as raw as hers, “please. You’re hurting yourself.”

“They were counting on me to save them and I failed,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard him.  Her hand rose, fell, more red marking the stone.  Pain flickered across her face and she tightened her fist, watching dispassionately until blood flowed in a steady trickle down her wrist, her skin tattered across the side of her palm.  She opened her hand and the Anchor spluttered green light, as if woken to sluggish life by the taste of its host’s blood.

“You did all you could,” Cullen said lowly.

“I should have done _more!_ ” Lavellan shouted, both palms coming down on the stone, and her fingers curled, clutching at the rock.  Her voice was snatched away in the wind and a ragged sound tore itself out of her throat—like a sob, from a woman not accustomed to tears.  Her left fist rose again, and this time Cullen did reach out, catching the bloodied wrist of her left hand in his own and pulling her away from the wall.  Lavellan’s teeth were clenched tight and her eyes spilled over, one or two tears at a time.

“There was no more to be done, Inquisitor,” Cullen said.

“Inquisitor,” she repeated, rolling it around in her mouth like a poison berry not yet bitten.  “I saved all these people,” Lavellan said.  “The Inquisitor did.  But my family—I didn’t save them.”

“You couldn’t.”

“I failed them,” she whispered, closing her eyes.  Cullen could feel the taut tendons and muscles in her wrist, the creaking strain of trying to clench her fist ever tighter, but she didn’t pull against him.

“I’m sorry that we couldn’t save them,” Cullen murmured.  “But you couldn’t have known.  It’s not your fault.”

“And what the hell do you know about it,” Lavellan spat, yanking hard against his grip.  He let go without a fight and she stumbled, leaning against the wall as if her legs couldn’t be trusted to hold her up.

Cullen braced his arms against the battlement wall and didn’t look at her.  “I was one of the Templars at the Circle Tower,” he said, very even.  The memory was still bitter on his tongue, the weight of responsibility for his actions—and for not a few deaths—as viscerally present as ever.  “And I was Knight-Commander Meredith’s second in command at Kirkwall Circle.  Cassandra recruited me to the Inquisition as an opportunity to make up for some of the damage I did in those places.  I know something of complicity and guilt.”

Lavellan stood in silence for a moment.  “I’m sorry,” she finally said.  “I didn’t know.”

“Because I didn’t tell you,” Cullen said simply.  “But I know how it feels to believe that you have blood on your hands—and I know how it feels to be right.  I am sorry for the loss of your clan, Inquisitor, but no one is to blame save for the people who killed them and the duke who did nothing.  You acted in what you believed were their best interests.”

“I could have sent you,” she said numbly.  “I could have gone myself with a full complement of Inquisition soldiers, and they would have lived.”

“Your concern that my soldiers and I would start a turf war with the Duke was valid,” Cullen said.  “You believed that Josephine was our best option—our _only_ option.”  He reached out hesitantly and rested a hand on the Inquisitor’s arm.  “You do more than anyone for the Inquisition and the people of Thedas,” he said, almost a murmur.  “Don’t torture yourself because you can’t be everywhere at once.  No one could have predicted what happened.”

Lavellan scrubbed at her face with the back of her hand and gave a shaky-sounding laugh, humorless and ragged, and said, “I don’t even know why I’m crying.  I hadn’t spoken to them in years before they recruited me to spy on the Conclave at the Temple.  Hell, they barely tolerated me when I lived with them.  I shouldn’t even care that they’re—that they’re--”  Her voice gave out and she pressed her hand over her mouth.  She was shaking, but with repressed tears or cold he couldn’t tell.

“They were your family,” he said.  “The Circle Tower—they asked terrible things of me, and I knew they were asking terrible things.  I still mourned, when they were killed.  Even Meredith—she was a monster, and she took advantage of Templars whose experiences had ruined them, turned the rest of us into monsters too.  It still hurt, when the Champion killed her.  It’s not a crime to grieve someone who treated you poorly.”

Lavellan looked down at her marked palm for a moment before she closed it and offered Cullen a somewhat grim smile.  “And I suppose you’ve paid handsomely for that wisdom.”

Cullen nodded, reaching up to unclasp and shrug off his cloak.  The wind, without it, was a sharp reminder that their safe haven was a mountain stronghold where winter ruled for much of the year, but he stubbornly ignored it. 

“Inquisitor,” he said, offering it to her.  “The wind is too cold to stand up here for long dressed like that.”

“I couldn’t--”

“You can,” he said firmly, draping the heavy ruff over her shoulders before she could evade him.  “And you will.”

Lavellan clutched the cloak around her despite her protests, bending her head to subtly brush her cheek against the fur, and Cullen had a vivid flash of memory—the Inquisitor, before she took up her title, when she was still only the Herald, lying semi-conscious in his arms as they fled Haven, and the way she had turned her face into the ruff of his cloak as he spoke to her.  He blinked the image away. 

Lavellan shivered, hard, and said, “Thank you, Commander.  For everything.”

“Would you like--”  Cullen cut himself off, stumbling over his words awkwardly, then took a deep breath and blurted, “Would you like me to stay here with you for a while, Inquisitor?”

Lavellan looked up at him in surprise.  “You would…do that?  Don’t you have,” she paused and huffed out another laugh, more genuine but just as fragile-sounding, “recruits to torture or something?  Soldiers to run into the ground?”

“I’m sure they’ll survive one day without me,” Cullen said, offering her a crooked, nervous smile. 

She mirrored it, red lips curving almost shyly, and said, “Then yes, you can stay.  But only if you drop this Inquisitor nonsense.”

“I couldn’t--”

“You can,” she said, a teasing light glittering dimly in her eyes.  Cullen was glad to see it, even if it was at his own expense.  “And you will.”  Cullen blinked, then smiled again.  “Rhosyn Lavellan,” she said, offering her unmarked right hand.  “My friends call me Rhosyn.”

“Cullen,” he said, clasping her hand gently in his own.  “It’s my pleasure.”


	3. get my story straight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quaint Ferelden customs that neither Dorian nor Lavellan is particularly skilled at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A nice fluffy chapter that is literally the first one I wrote for this, based on the fact that Cullen doesn't appear to have a lot of...real friends. And that Ferelden seems like the kind of place where the shovel talk is a time-honored part of the culture.
> 
> Title is from We Are Young by Fun. and I recommend the absolute heck out of it, especially for Dorian/Inquisitor friendship.

“Cassandra,” Dorian said, all blithe cheer, and the Seeker lowered her sword, leaving a battered practice target to list dismally to the side.  She gave Dorian the same sharp look she gave anyone who interrupted her drills.  “Have you seen the Inquisitor today?”

Cassandra arched an eyebrow.  “Yes, I saw her speak with Josephine about some of our…visitors.  Why did you want her?”

“Seeker!” Dorian said, mocking scandal with a hand splayed to his chest.  “Are you suggesting that you don’t relish the company of our noble guests?”

“Yes,” Cassandra said in her stoniest tone.  Dorian didn’t blink—he had managed to rustle up a handful of novels in his search for research materials in the innards of Skyhold, and Cassandra had been more enthusiastic than anyone else.  While the knowledge that Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast read romance novels didn’t lessen her intimidation factor, it _did_ make it rather easier to remember that she was, at the end of it all, a mortal, rather than the wrathful avatar of a just god.

The comparison was Varric’s, and undeniable.  Dorian was not so fearless nor so foolhardy as to tell Cassandra as much to her face.

Cassandra observed him for a moment, and Dorian tried to look as innocent as he could manage.  The silent quirk of her lips suggested that perhaps she was unconvinced.  “ _Why_ did you want the Inquisitor, Dorian?” she repeated, tolerant.

“I’ve been informed that I have a duty to fulfill as the good Commander’s friend,” Dorian said, and offered her a polite bow of his head.  “Unless you would prefer to fill the role?”

“Cullen is a grown man, and more than capable of handling his own romantic affairs,” Cassandra said dryly. 

“You know what, you say that, but here we all are after a _year_ of the pair of them dancing around the issue.  This all might have been over much more quickly if someone had had the common decency to lock the pair of them in one of Haven’s storage closets,” he added with a critical look at her.

“ _You_ were not even present for the majority of that year.”

Dorian clapped his hands together cheerfully.  “And yet I feel like I was, from all the complaints I’ve heard.  So, Seeker: our Inquisitor is where?”

Cassandra sighed, sheathing her blade, and said, “I believe Inquisitor Lavellan is at the Herald’s Rest.  Don’t get lost.”

“Thank you kindly for your concern, Seeker,” Dorian said, sketching a bow, and offered a smile when he straightened.  “I’ll be out of your hair now.”

Cassandra gave a huff, somewhere between a laugh and a sound of mild disdain, and stepped forward to do what she could to right the abused dummy as Dorian folded his hands at the small of his back and strolled away.

The Herald’s Rest was loud and boisterous, Maryden leading the whole lot of them in a rousing rendition of Take Back the Sky.  Dorian didn’t even bother looking for his quarry on the first floor, where the singing was loudest—he hadn’t known Lavellan to sit through a complete round of the song yet, and he doubted today would be the day she started.  The second floor, too, was filled with people, and he climbed to the third floor, to where Cole lingered in the corner.

Cole peered out from under his (atrocious) hat, and Dorian held still, outside arm’s length—Cole didn’t radiate the same degree of profound, hungry malice that he was used to feeling from Fade creatures, but any mage worth the wood and metal for their staff knew not to get cute with something theoretically capable of possession.  Besides.  Cole startled easily, if you came at him too fast, and he looked so much like a helpless half-drowned kitten all the time.  A helpless half-drowned kitten wearing a hat that somehow managed to be simultaneously _all_ brim and an iron bucket.

“Cole, I hope you’re doing well this fine afternoon,” Dorian greeted cheerfully, and Cole blinked at him.

“I like my hat.”

“Clearly, you are a madman,” Dorian said, and almost bit his tongue—hadn’t he _just_ promised himself not to needle the Fade spirit?  But Cole smiled a little, bemused, and tilted his head enough to let Dorian see one wide blue eye.

“Little, light, lonely,” Cole said, dreamy, “a boy in a library, the bookshelves are so tall, all the way up to the sky—sweetheart, are you ever going outside?  Studying, searching, seeking… _something_ , something to put in the empty place--”

Dorian cleared his throat, interrupting Cole, and said dryly, “ _Thank_ you for that lovely reminiscence.”

“When was the last time you had a friend?” Cole asked, completely guileless, and Dorian tried not to clench his teeth so hard he gave himself a headache.  “She’s hiding on the battlements.  The song is all the wrong truths and all the rest of it is lies—but I don’t think so, do you?”

“Not especially,” Dorian said, uncertain—he hated feeling uncertain.  This was why he avoided Cole.  Holding a conversation with him was like trying to walk blindfolded across a field riddled with elemental runes.  One wrong step and suddenly you were holding your foot in your hands and wondering how it wandered off from the rest of your leg.  “These battlements?”

“Yes.”  Cole’s voice was warm, good-natured, as if Dorian had given him a compliment.  “He’s writing reports, so she’s here.”

“He—Cullen,” Dorian gathered, and Cole nodded, clearly pleased.  “I’m getting good at this,” Dorian said.  “Thank you.”  He offered Cole the same sketchy bow he’d given Cassandra—this time he got pure blank confusion, which was…almost cute, to be honest—and retreated out the battlements.

The Inquisitor was there, apparently lost in thought as she looked down on the surgeon’s tents far below, and she didn’t even twitch when the door opened.  Dorian hid a smile and prowled forward silently, until he was just behind her.

“We’ll look to our leader, and heft up our crest, to show this Corypheus we’re not impressed!” he sang, and Lavellan yelped in surprise, swinging around so abruptly she narrowly missed catching him in the nose.  “Not the face, if you please, Inquisitor,” Dorian said, smirking, and she scowled at him.

Lavellan pointed at him with a dire finger.  “If you start singing that damned chant too, I’ll smack you so hard all the illustrious ancestors of House Pavus will come back just to find out who disgraced them.”

“You do know your way around a threat, don’t you, my dear.”

“I’ve mastered the art lately.”  Her thunderous scowl faded and she braced both hands against the battlement wall behind her, hopping neatly onto the stone with her back to the drop below.  “Now, what can I do for you, Dorian?”

“Not fall off that edge,” he said.  A flash of premonition showed the state of him if Cassandra—or, Maker, even worse, _Leliana_ —found out that their Inquisitor had toppled over a wall and died on his watch.  Cullen would toss him off the mountain without even breaking a sweat.

To Dorian’s alarm, Lavellan’s response was to twist and eyeball the drop with a considering look in her eye.  “I think I’d be okay,” she said thoughtfully, apparently judging the distance to the next set of stairs below.  “Maybe a few bruises.”

Dorian snatched the sleeve of her leather jerkin as she leaned outward, and he gave it a solid yank to settle her balance to his satisfaction.  “For all of us, Inquisitor,” he said dryly.  “I’d rather not be the one to tell the Commander that you managed to break your neck in your own fortress.”

Lavellan sniffed in mock disdain, but her lips curved up into a grin and she kicked her feet like a little girl, some distance above the floor.  It was shockingly easy to forget how delicately built their Inquisitor was—more so when you had watched her bull into the middle of a fight with no regard for the fact that, traditionally, archers did _not_.  She rarely went down, though, a master at closing in to tackle a Rift and then darting out of the way when the latest rage demon left its fiery trail through the battlefield. 

She could also bend a bow that was as tall as she was, and so sturdy that even Cassandra struggled with it.  Thinking of someone with that much sheer strength in their body as in any way fragile was hazardous to one’s health.

“So, Dorian, did you want something, or did you just get bored trapped in your musty tower?”

“The tower is not _musty_ ,” he protested.  “Just because _you_ would rather learn about demons by trial and error doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t at least _try_ to know what we’re getting into—and you’re mocking me.”  Her full red lips were pressed into a line, shoulders shaking in amusement, and when she finally let the laugh bubble up it was loud and glad, enough to draw a reluctant grin out of Dorian in response.

“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely when her good humor had died down.  “I’ll try and find you a few more books that aren’t about the daily doings of Divine Whoever the Twelfth.”

“Very much appreciated, Lavellan,” Dorian said, cheerful.  “And yes, I did want a word with you, actually.  Not about the frankly deplorable state of the library, for once.”

“Have a word,” Lavellan said.  “Have several, even.  Hell, if you use my given name, I might even upgrade you to a sentence.”

Dorian laughed and bounced on his toes, all energy now.  Banter with Lavellan always put him in a good mood, her quick wit and bright eyes like sunlight breaking through the cloud of suspicion that most of Skyhold directed at him.  If he was a different man…he could hardly blame Cullen for being so hopelessly besotted, was the point here.

“I’ve been informed of an adorably quaint southern custom I’m obliged to complete, now that the Commander has acquired a romantic partner,” Dorian said, taking care to fill the words with as much of his Tevinter drawl as he could manage, and Lavellan cocked her head, amusement glittering in her eyes.  “He’s rather lacking for other friends, you see.”

“I am aware,” she said, a flicker of a frown crossing her face.  Cullen was by and large a loner by choice, save for some of the Inquisitor’s inner circle and Rylen, his right hand, but not a few of the Templars viewed the Commander as something of a traitor to the Order, while many of the mages still walked wary around anyone who had been in Kirkwall, and everyone knew it.  “I’ve had a word with Barris about it, but he can’t order his men to change their minds.  And it upsets Cole too much, I can’t ask him to help.”

“Yes, well, all us loners together,” Dorian said dryly, making a pointed gesture toward Lavellan’s preferred haunt alone on the battlements.  She awarded him a rueful tilt of her head, granting the point.  “And I think the good Ambassador offers enough extroversion to make up for it.”

“Fair enough.  Your ‘quaint southern custom’ as Cullen’s friend?” she prompted.

“Ah.  Well, be gentle with me, it’s my first time,” Dorian said, and cleared his throat, arranging his face into his best solemn expression, the one he’d been told gave off a strong aura of _do remember that I could scorch you like an ant under a jeweler’s magnifying glass_.  Lavellan looked back at him expectantly, teetering on the fine line between serious attention and amusement. 

“Whenever you’re ready.”

“Thank you.  Now,” Dorian began, “I consider you both to be exceptional people, but the Commander is a good man, much as he might think otherwise, and rather pathetically enamored with you.  As such, I feel obliged to inform you that if you were to break his heart, I would be very distraught about having to immolate Thedas’ best hope for survival.  Try not to emulate Andraste quite that far, if you please.”

Lavellan’s face was frozen for a moment in bafflement before she said, almost awe-struck, “Are you…warning me not to hurt him?”  Dorian didn’t blink, and her grin broke out like clearing clouds as she laughed.  It wasn’t ill-spirited, but tinged with bright wonder, merry and joyful as it carried across the battlements, and he saw a few faces in the courtyard below look up with startled smiles on their faces.  “Oh,” she said, gasping for breath, and Dorian let his solemn mask crack a little at her clear delight, “oh, _fenhedis_ , everyone else is so polite and respectful, I needed that, bless you.  Maker, they don’t do this in Tevinter, do they?” she asked as she wiped at her eyes, still giggling in breathless little bursts.  “You look like you’re on trial, this isn’t an oral exam.”

“You’d know if I was giving an oral exam,” Dorian shot back without thought, smirking, and Lavellan grinned.  “And no, not as such.  One does, of course, give warnings to the person one’s family is marrying, but they usually involve a great deal of blackmail and very little concern for anyone’s emotional wellbeing.  I’m quite fond of this particular barbarian habit, though, it’s endearing.”

“Oh, isn’t it just,” Lavellan said, edged with laughter again, and he was reminded abruptly that she hadn’t grown up submerged in Fereldan culture either.  “In my clan, everyone knows everyone else—knew,” she corrected, a shadow crossing her face.  She swept it away like nothing more than gauze and smiled again.  “As long as you were respectable, no one offered any threats to anyone else.  Not that I know from personal experience,” she admitted.  “Most of my flings were…”

“Mutually brief arrangements,” Dorian supplied dryly, and she gave him a regal nod.

Her humor faded into something softer and she studied him for a moment, those steely eyes pale blue in the light of the sun.  “In all seriousness, though,” she said more quietly.  “I appreciate you taking care of him.  I won’t hurt him, not if I can help it.”  Lavellan closed her left fist tightly, an involuntary motion as if to hide the mark there, and didn’t say what everyone in Skyhold tried not to think—she might not be able to help it.  If the world called for her death to save it from the Breach, every last person in the Inquisition knew that Lavellan would raise the sword to her throat with her own two hands.  She hadn’t hesitated at Haven.

The beat of grim reality evaporated quickly, mist fading with the dawn and leaving behind the good-natured warmth of the smile that curved on her lips again.  “And I’ll make sure not to be the latest story of a martyr burned alive by Tevinter mages,” she added, a mocking glitter in her eyes.  Dorian clicked his teeth at her, a false threat like one of the Fereldan’s beloved Mabari at play, and she feigned terror, the back of one hand to her forehead and a nerve-wracking tilt backward that draped her half-way over the drop. 

“You won’t live to be burned alive by anyone if you _fall over the edge_ ,” Dorian pointed out sharply.  And Lavellan straightened up, laughing, and slipped off the edge of the stone wall, looping one arm through his.

“Come on, Dorian,” she said.  “I’ll bet they’re through with that damned song by now.  Drinks are on me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all three people reading this, I'm sorry for the day delay, I was drinking and making chili. Like, I want to have a good excuse but I don't, I was just drinking Reisling out of a mason jar and making chili, as you do, and by the time I was done with those two things I wasn't really on top of things enough to post.
> 
> Come talk to me about Dragon Age [on Tumblr](http://words-writ-in-starlight.tumblr.com/ask).


	4. for all of the perfect things that i doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one about lyrium withdrawal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I swear to God, someday I will successfully post on time. For those of you who follow me on Tumblr, my aunt has finally fucking left. For those of you who do not, my aunt was here and it was awful and I spent most of last night staring at a wall while I listened to a podcast. So I am posting some angst fic to make myself feel better.
> 
> Title of this chapter is from the song "I'll Be Good" by Jaymes Young and honestly if you've never sat and wallowed about Cullen to this song, you should probably do that while you read the chapter.

Cassandra was waiting for Rhosyn when her party returned from the cursory expedition to the Emerald Graves.  It had been an easier journey than some, a week’s ride there and back with two weeks of clearing Red Templars and negotiating with Fairbanks in between, and beautiful, the deep green of the trees with winking flecks of blue in the sky high above.  A still, solemn sort of beauty, though, heavy with grief.  The touch of the long-dead elvhen who had called it their home lingered still, in statues and inscriptions—there was a degree of grim humor there, that it was Rhosyn, a poor excuse for a Dalish elf at the best of times and now a Herald for a god who wasn’t even elvish, who was now touring her ancestor’s homes with arrow and blade.  Rhosyn remembered Harding’s expression of mild horror when she had quoted the old phrase— _we are the last of the elvhen, never again shall we forget_ —as if Harding had been swamped by self-recrimination at the reminder.  Leading the red hart through the gates of Skyhold and handing her off to a nervous stablehand, Rhosyn made a mental note to see if Harding was away, and to have a reassuring word with her if she was in the fortress.

But then there was Cassandra.  Dorian, Cole, and Bull had evaporated upon their return, Bull to check on the Chargers and Dorian with a mutter about a proper bath.  Cole—who knew where Cole had gone.  So it was only Rhosyn who was stopped by the Seeker, the aristocratic lines of Cassandra’s face drawn tight and her lips thin.

“Cassandra, is something wrong?” Rhosyn asked, narrowing her eyes.  Cassandra was the quintessential unflappable Seeker—after seeing her fail to even blink at the arrival of the archdemon at Haven, Rhosyn was reasonably confident that nothing short of total apocalypse would earn surprise from the woman.  To see her so concerned made all the muscles in Rhosyn’s shoulders tight, her fingers reaching back to touch the comforting strength of her bow.

“Yes,” Cassandra said without so much as a qualification.  “Skyhold is in no danger, nor the Inquisition,” she reported, as pragmatic as ever.  “But if you would come with me, Inquisitor, I would appreciate it.”

“I’m still--”

“Your armor is unnecessary, but fine,” Cassandra interrupted, gripping Rhosyn’s elbow and steering her forward toward the nearest flight of stairs through main force.  “If you wish, I can ask someone to bring your bow and quiver back to Harrit for examination.”

“Cassandra,” Rhosyn said, digging in her heels.  Cassandra, certainly strong enough to simply pick Rhosyn up and continue up to the battlements, allowed herself to be stayed, and looked down at the woman beside her.  Rhosyn studied her, unease beginning to twist through her stomach at the naked worry in Cassandra’s dark eyes.  “What’s happening?”

Cassandra took a deep breath, let it out, and said, quiet but perfectly even, “I know that you are aware that Commander Cullen is attempting to overcome his addiction to lyrium.  He took a rather precipitous turn for the worse two days ago.  We have been forced to tell Leliana and Josephine, but nearly everyone else believes the Commander has been struck down with a serious illness.  I have recruited Varric to help me tend to him, for lack of any better options--”

“What do you mean, a turn for the worse?” Rhosyn demanded, hand closing around Cassandra’s bare wrist.  It was the way her fingers closed around bone and sinew rather than a vambrace that made Rhosyn realize with a start that Cassandra’s accustomed armor was absent, leaving her strangely smaller than Rhosyn was used to, and there were weary circles under her eyes.  _Oh, Maker, Cullen_.

“It is complicated,” Cassandra said, and gestured toward the stairs.  “Inquisitor.  Please.”

Feeling as if her heart had taken a leave of absence, her body bloodless and cold, Rhosyn nodded silently, and allowed herself to be towed up the stairs.

As they walked, Cassandra spoke in low tones.  “How much do you know about lyrium withdrawal, Inquisitor?”

“Not much,” Rhosyn admitted, and her voice didn’t sound quite like her own.  It was calm, unbroken, despite the way panic stirred in her chest.  “Only what Cullen would tell me, and that…not much.  I can guess that anything that gives so much power has a nasty backlash, though.”

“Indeed,” Cassandra said.  “More than you know.  Most who attempt what Cullen is doing die, or go mad, within months.”

“That part I know,” Rhosyn said quietly.  The question stuck in her throat like a stone, and when she finally managed to force it out, the words sounded like the rasp of someone with a terrible wound.  “Will he?”

Cassandra’s lips thinned again.  “Cullen is strong, stronger than most of his comrades.  He has stopped using lyrium by choice, not been forced into it by being forced out of the Order.  His health is otherwise good, and he has purpose, something that many ex-Templars sorely lack.”

This time, when Rhosyn came to a halt at the top of the stairs, Cassandra didn’t fight, and didn’t look at her.  “But will he die?  Or lose himself?”  In the moment, Rhosyn couldn’t imagine which would be worse—to see Cullen’s warm eyes blank with dead, or empty with madness.  She suspected, from what little he had said of the matter, that he would rather die than be forced to watch his mind crumble away from him.

“I do not know,” Cassandra said, and bared her teeth in a snarl.  “Not if we have anything to say about it.”

The words were not reassuring, and Rhosyn started walking again without Cassanda’s aid.  “Tell me what’s wrong with him,” Rhosyn ordered.

“You must understand, Inquisitor,” Cassandra began, “lyrium lingers in the body like a disease.  It can take two or three weeks for the first symptoms of withdrawal to appear, after the sustained levels drop below what the body is able to compensate for—Cullen stopped taking the lyrium just a week after we reached Skyhold.”  Rhosyn worried at her lip.  That information put their conversation, her encouragement that he stay his course, at about three weeks later.  “After a month, the symptoms are often almost debilitating.”

“But Cullen was fine a month ago,” Rhosyn burst out.  “Or, well,” she said, suddenly stumbling over her words at the memory of the fine lines of strain around his eyes, “not fine, but he was…he was coping.”  She didn’t raise a hand to her lips, but only through sheer willpower.

“The Commander is a very stubborn man,” Cassandra said, and her dry humor dragged a faint smile out of Rhosyn.  “He withstood the symptoms longer than anyone I have ever heard of, fulfilled his duties daily and did not speak of any difficulties.  He kept me apprised, so I am aware he was in no insignificant amount of pain, but he bore up remarkably well until the end of the second month.”

The words held weight, something unfamiliar, and Rhosyn asked, as if reading from a script, “What does the second month matter?”

“It takes about two months for the body to burn through the majority of its lyrium stores,” Cassandra said.  “Then…once the lyrium is almost gone, the body tries to claim the last of it, from the blood and tissue, by any means necessary.”  When Rhosyn didn’t reply, Cassandra added quietly, “This is the part that kills people.”

“How is he?” Rhosyn asked, her voice emotionless again.  “How did this start?”

“Cullen came to find me in the forge, two days ago,” Cassandra said, stilted.  “He looked…worse.  Very pale, quite dizzy.  Distressed.  He had a fever, and he seemed…unclear.  As if he struggled to recall where he was or what he was doing.  He asked me to give him the lyrium I have kept, as his own kit was destroyed, and I refused.  He was not rational.  I was concerned that he might attempt to use force, and that I might be required to subdue him, but he said—he said that he thought there was a reason he hadn’t used it.  He was distraught that he could not remember.”

Rhosyn nodded, sick worry churning in her stomach and a strange pressure making her breathing shallow.  “And then?”

“I attempted to convince him to let me find him quarters within Skyhold, but he refused.  I brought him back to his own quarters, in the tower, and…”  Cassandra hesitated.  “He has been unwell.  The fever is not dangerous, but it will be if it climbs any higher.  I think the worst of it has been the hallucinations.  It is usually the seizures which cause harm--”

“Seizures?”

“Yes,” Cassandra confirmed reluctantly.  “He has only suffered one, on that first day.  I have hopes that he will not have another.”  She sighed.  “But he has been in a great deal of pain, and he has been distressed, frightened by the things he sees.”  Another pause, this time as she evaluated Rhosyn out of the corner of her eye.  “He has asked for you, when he has been awake.”

“I—for me?”  It wasn’t a compliment, not really, but it warmed some part of Rhosyn’s heart that she mattered so much to him.  At the same time, there was a sharp-clawed fist of guilt in her chest, that she had been gone when Cullen needed her, and it was clear that Cassandra saw it on her face.

“I knew you were traveling back,” Cassandra said.  “Or I would have sent a messenger for you.  You could not have left the Emerald Graves for later, even if Cullen had told you that this would happen.”

“Thank you,” Rhosyn said quietly.

Cassandra nodded, and with one hand dismissed the guards lingering above the gatehouse.  They scattered to allow the two women to pass.  “Inquisitor,” she said in a murmur as they lingered at the door to Cullen’s tower.  “Rhosyn.”  The use of her given name—increasingly uncommon as the Inquisition grew and her legend became more and more pervasive—made Rhosyn’s head snap around toward Cassandra.  “I think you should be aware of the fact that Cullen has not always recognized us.  He may not realize who you are, or accuse you of being an imposter.  He believed he was at the Kinloch Circle Tower most of yesterday, and would not allow Varric or I to touch him, claimed we had killed you.  When he was lucid again, he apologized, but that does not make it any less of an unnerving experience.”

“Right,” Rhosyn breathed.

“I just want you to be aware.”  Cassandra unlocked the door to Cullen’s office and pushed it open, and found Varric sitting at the base of the ladder, eyes at half-mast and sporting a rather spectacular bruise, at least a day old, on his jaw.

“Seeker,” he said lowly, standing and rubbing at his forehead.  “He’s asleep right now.  Or out of it, at least, I couldn’t tell which.”  Varric blinked and visibly slackened with relief when he saw Rhosyn behind her shoulder.  “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” he said frankly.  “It’s been a hell of a day.”

“I’ve heard,” Rhosyn said.  “You’ve been helping Cassandra keep an eye on him?”

Varric gave a small shrug.  “I’ve had enough experience with the red stuff—and plenty of other drugs under the sun—that I knew what I was looking at when I saw the Seeker bringing Curly back here.  I offered my help, since it’s a little hard to work a sickbed with only one pair of hands.”

“And we already know he can keep a secret,” Cassandra said with ill-disguised bitterness.  The deceit of Hawke’s location was still an open wound, almost visible in the air any time Cassandra and Varric were in the same room.  To Rhosyn’s relief, they didn’t seem inclined to rehash the argument at the moment, and Varric settled for a scowl.

Rhosyn glanced up the ladder, feeling suddenly hesitant.  “Should I…?  I mean, if he’s asleep, I don’t want to wake him.”

“He’ll be awake in a few minutes anyway,” Varric said.  “Not exactly sleeping well.  Might want to leave the weapons and armor here.”

“Right,” Rhosyn muttered, shucking off her bow and quiver without thought.  Her armor—a sturdy prowler’s coat and lightweight breastplate stamped with the Inquisition eye and flaming sword—followed at once, abandoned in a pile on the floor to leave her in a light linen undershirt and close-fitted pants.  “Cassandra, could you--”

“I will make sure they reach Harrit for repairs,” Cassandra confirmed.

“And if you wouldn’t mind--”

A flicker of humor touched Cassandra’s mouth, and she added, “I will ensure that Dagna does not perform any experimental alterations, Inquisitor.”

“Right,” Rhosyn muttered, distracted.  “Thanks.”

Climbing the ladder felt like an invasion—she had never seen Cullen’s quarters before, although she was aware that he had three times redirected resources intended to repair the hole in the roof in order to complete more critical duties.  She had toyed with the idea of ordering it done herself, but it didn’t seem to particularly bother him, and when she asked, he had wryly pointed out that there was still a gaping hole in their fortress wall.  A perfectly manageable hole in a tower roof wasn’t going to get anyone killed.

Under any other circumstances, Rhosyn would have taken the moment to look at Cullen’s space, try to see traces of him in the room, but as it was, the way Cullen’s eyes opened when she hoisted herself onto his floor claimed her attention.  He looked terrible, she thought, and hoped it didn’t show on her face as she pulled her legs under her and stood.  His hair was rumpled, the usually neat style turned into a riot of sweat-soaked curls around a face that had passed pallor and gone directly into the grey sheen of the seriously ill.  The dark circles under his eyes were like scars, cut so deeply into his flesh it looked like they would never fade again.  His armor was gone, as was his cloak, leaving him dressed much the same as she was, although his shirt was rumpled.  He lay on his side, his back pressed against the wall as if expecting an attack, but his gaze focused on her clearly.

“Hey, Commander,” Rhosyn murmured as she stepped forward slowly, trying to muster a smile for him.  “Heard you’d been asking for me.”

“Have I,” Cullen muttered, not a question so much as a cursory acknowledgement of confusion as his brow furrowed, exhaustion stamped clearly on his face.  “I don’t--”  Rhosyn remembered what Cassandra had said as he cut himself off, that he had been confused by the fever and the withdrawal.  “I thought I saw you, before,” he said.  “But it wasn’t real.”

“No,” she confirmed, because he seemed uncertain of whether it was true.  She reached his bed and lingered beside it, unsure.  “I just returned from the Emerald Graves.  And I do mean _just_ now, the stablehand probably hasn’t even squared the hart away yet.”

“How did it go with…”  Cullen closed his eyes, frowning.

“Fairbanks,” Rhosyn supplied quietly, and Cullen opened his eyes, nodding.  So close, she could see that his eyes were glassy with fever, his pupils blown wide as his system fought to milk every available drop of lyrium for all that it was worth.  She wished he wasn’t trying to talk business, just at this moment—but if it made him feel better, she was hardly going to deny him the information.  “It went all right,” she said.  “He was grateful for our help.  He’ll be a good ally, once we manage to clear out the Freedmen.”  She gestured to the edge of the bed, made awkward by worry, and asked, “May I?”

Another nod, and his eyes followed her as she settled on the bed, sitting with one leg tucked up underneath her and the other dangling, facing him.  Cullen’s gaze was always intense, but now it seemed almost fixed, as if he was afraid that she would disappear the moment he looked away.

“How are you feeling?” Rhosyn asked at last, when she couldn’t bear his silent, almost childlike regard anymore.  It was the most foolish question of her life, and she wanted to snatch it back the moment it fell from her lips.

Cullen smiled faintly, though, for just a moment.  “I’m fine.”

“You look it,” she said, injecting every ounce of sarcasm she could manage into the words.  The faint smile flickered again, then disappeared for an expression of something she couldn’t quite pin down—it looked almost like fear.

“How did you get here?” he asked, and his voice was a rough whisper.

“I rode,” she said, feeling her stomach drop as if she had just stepped off a cliff.  “Cullen, do you still know who I am?”

“Yes,” he said, and reached for her hand.  Rhosyn let him take it, watched his fingers slot together with hers like matching halves of a door.  “Where…”  His voice was thinner, not quite shaken.  “Where are we?  Are we still at Kinloch?”

“No,” Rhosyn said quietly, cradling his hand in both of hers, sweeping a slow and steady path over the back of his knuckles with her thumb.  “We’re at Skyhold, with the Inquisition.”

“Skyhold,” Cullen repeated, as if trying to prove it to himself.  “I don’t…”  His muscles tensed suddenly, and he withdrew his hand.  “Why can’t I _remember_?” he snarled, and the burst of anger was enough to get him up, sliding off the bed like a cat and towering over her.  His hand closed on her wrist, hard enough to remind her that, sick or not, he was still strong enough to do harm.  “You’re lying to me.”

Rhosyn held very still, looking back at him without standing from the bed, fearless.  The clarity he had shown when he first awoke was gone, washed away.  His hand was like a shackle around her wrist, probably tight enough to bruise but not tightening.  “I am not lying to you, and you are not going to hurt me.  You’re suffering from lyrium withdrawal, Cullen.  You should remember everything after your fever breaks.”  _If your fever breaks_.

“I…”  The anger evaporated as fast as it had appeared, leaving confusion behind.  His hand loosened at once, letting her wrist drop back to her lap. “Why haven’t I taken lyrium?”

“You didn’t want to, not anymore,” Rhosyn said, standing slowly.  If she was right—and she suspected she was—Cullen’s energy was going to give out any second now.  His situation would only get worse if he injured himself during the inevitable fall.  “Cullen,” she said quietly, advancing on him with both hands open, showing herself to be unarmed.  “You remember me, right?”

“You’re…”  He trailed off, eyes flickering over the room as if he would find the information written somewhere, then looked back at her, his hands shaking.  “I know you,” he said, and that much, he seemed confident of.

“Okay,” Rhosyn said, coming to a halt a few steps in front of him, hands still outstretched and open.  The Mark lay quiescent, for the moment, kept still by the iron-handed control she kept on her emotions, and Cullen’s glance toward the green gash in her palm was dismissive, not alarmed.  She would take it as a win.  “That’s good.  You don’t need to know my name, it’s okay.  Here, can you come to me?”

Cullen took a step, then another.  His strength gave out just as he reached her, catching her hands and almost crashing to his knees.  Rhosyn managed to catch him, one shoulder under his arm, and neatly turned to tip him back onto the bed.

“There,” Rhosyn huffed, a little breathless, as she resumed her seat beside him.  Her heart was hammering, almost enough to make her ribs rattle, and her wrist would probably hurt once the adrenaline wore off, but she made herself comfortable.  “Nothing to it.”

“Thank you,” Cullen murmured, his eyes half-closed.  An expression of genuine grief broke through the hazy, pained look on his face, and she suspected that he was lucid again.  “I’m sorry.  You should go.”

“Do you want me to leave?” Rhosyn asked.

“I’m not safe.”

“Comparatively speaking, I tend to think you’re very safe,” she said firmly.  “I’m not leaving.”

Blind relief broke over his face and he breathed, “Thank you.”

Rhosyn nodded, inching closer so that she could reach out and brush a few curls off his forehead, feeling the heat of the fever radiate from his skin.  He shifted, winced faintly, and she asked, “Can I do anything for the pain?”

A small shake of his head.  “It comes and goes,” he murmured.  His eyes fluttered closed, and Rhosyn wrapped a hand around his wrist, fingers resting over the place where his pulse beat against his skin.  It was fast, faster than it should have been in a man who had been more or less confined to bed for three days, and Cullen’s skin was hot to the touch. 

She rubbed a soothing circle over the bone at his wrist and asked quietly, “Do you mind if I ask what you’ve been seeing?”

“Kinloch,” he murmured, eyes still closed.  “Kirkwall.  Haven.  Cassandra and Varric…I thought they were illusions, demons.  Desire demons don’t just target lust, you know,” he said, voice distant.

“I know,” Rhosyn said, still smoothing her thumb over his wrist.  “What else?”

Cullen’s eyes flickered open again and he looked down at their joined hands, stretching his fingers flat as if to show the bruising that covered the back of his knuckles.  “I saw red lyrium growing out of my hands.  You were here, and you said.”  He closed his mouth so sharply that his teeth clicked, and he closed his eyes again.  “It’s not important.  The hallucinations will stop.”

Rhosyn bit back on the automatic response, matter-of-fact.  _Or you’ll go mad_.  Even in the northern forests, she had heard stories of Templars who lost the ability to determine reality from the imaginings of their own minds.  She couldn’t bear to picture Cullen, sharp and brilliant and scarred but still upright, brought down like that.

“What did I say,” she whispered instead, and this time, when Cullen’s hand closed around hers, it was the desperate clutch of someone in the face of a nightmare. 

“The most recent time, you said that I would leave the Inquisition crippled unless I got over this flight of fancy,” he said, voice tight with strain.  “And then—and then you were taken by a demon, and you were gone.”

“I was here more than once?”

Cullen closed his eyes.  “I’ve seen you a lot,” he admitted, like it cost him something to say it.  “I just.  I wanted to see you.”

Smoothing a thumb over his knuckles, Rhosyn said quietly, “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.  I’m back now, and I won’t leave.”  She paused, then said hesitantly, “Cassandra said you thought she had killed me.”

“There was a girl, at Kinloch,” Cullen said, sounding like he was speaking from a great distance, or like it took terrible effort to form the words.  The hand that wasn’t wrapped around Rhosyn’s was shaking, and he closed it into a fist.  “She had just passed her Harrowing.  It was the first time I was assigned to stand vigil over a Harrowing, it was a—a lesson, I suppose, about becoming attached.  She was fine.  A very talented mage.  But when the Circle Tower broke, a demon took her form and--”  He pressed his lips together, silent for a long beat, and the scar on his lip stood out like it had been painted on.  “I had friends there,” he said.  “Before.  The demon killed them, all of them.”

Rhosyn nodded, even though he couldn’t see her, and shifted her hand a bit in his, to ease the pressure of his grip on the joints of her fingers.  She didn’t mean to make him withdraw, but he did, yanking his hand back as if suddenly burned by her skin.

“I’m sorry,” Cullen said—gasped, eyes opening all at once as he retreated from her.  His eyes fell on her wrist, where a bruise in the shape of his hand was already rising.  “I’m sorry,” he repeated, sounding shattered by the sight of purple and blue below the cuff of her shirt, clashing with the gem-green wound on her palm.

“Cullen, I’m fine,” Rhosyn said sternly.  He didn’t answer.  “Look at me—Cullen.  _Commander_ ,” she said, sharp as a Revered Mother and unforgiving as stone, and he did as she said, the demands of duty cutting through whatever fog the last of the lyrium had left in his thoughts as cleanly as blade through flesh.  A good Chantry boy, she thought wryly, responding to the voice of authority.  “I’m not hurt,” she said, flexing her hand to prove the point.  “I promise.”

“But I—”

“Stop,” she said, trying to modulate the hard tone into something kinder, something less edged by fear of what might be.  “Cullen.  Just.  Here, give me your hands.”  He did, slow, but obedient.  Rhosyn tried not to cling too obviously, feeling the places where tendon and muscle had been sapped of their strength.  “I’m going to stay,” she said quietly. 

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You can’t make me leave,” Rhosyn said simply.  She didn’t want to lie to him—it was entirely possible that he _could_ hurt her, although she had doubts about whether he _would_ —but she didn’t intend to budge even a finger’s breadth.  She waited, to see if he would protest again, then slid closer when he didn’t, until she could feel the fever-heat of his skin through cloth, her hip just touching the curve of his ribs as she tucked her feet up under her legs.  She knew there were sicknesses and fevers that made any pressure hurt like a sheet of needles, but he didn’t flinch away from her.  “All right?  Does this hurt?”

Cullen took a deep breath, sighed, all the tension going out of him save for the lines of pain that creased his face.  “No,” he said quietly.  “Not right now.”

“Let me know if it does,” she said, and settled more comfortably against his side, hands still caught in hers.  His hands were so big in comparison to hers—Rhosyn knew she was small, but only as a passing awareness.  Holding Cullen’s hands in her own, though, she wondered how she ever managed to draw a bow, with such slender fingers and delicate bones.

“I will,” Cullen said—barely a murmur, eyes closed again, more at ease.  Rhosyn hummed, some tuneful lullaby from when she was small, about trees and wolves, and she could feel it in his slackening grip, the slow slide toward the shallow sleep of an invalid. 

Rhosyn hummed the last notes of her song, and Cullen’s eyes opened briefly.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

Rhosyn tightened her grip and said, fierce, “You’re going to be okay.  I’ll make it happen.”

“You’re the miracle worker,” he said, eyes drifting closed again—a tease, maybe, half a joke sapped by his exhaustion, or, possibly worse, honesty.  “I believe you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I exist [on Tumblr.](http://words-writ-in-starlight.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Also, thank you so much for the comments I've gotten, I expected this fic to be nothing but self-gratification and I'm so pleased that other people are actually reading it.


	5. going back to my roots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family is complicated, in the Magisterium and among the Dalish alike.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm about twelve hours late and I'm sorry but here is the next chapter.
> 
> The title is from the song Roots by Imagine Dragons.

Rhosyn sighed to herself and put out her right hand to catch Dorian by the arm as he tried to slip past her.  It had been…a long week all around.  Halward Pavus was a piece of work if ever she’d seen one, and she’d been more short-tempered with him than might have been helpful.  If she was a better diplomat, maybe she would have been able to encourage Dorian to stay, to talk to his father and at least close that chapter of his life in peace even if reconciliation was out of the question.  As it was, there was nothing but ruin.  It served _Magister_ Pavus right, to have his only child furious and estranged, but Dorian didn’t deserve this.

“Inquisitor, I was quite serious about getting drunk in the tavern,” Dorian said, looking down at the hand wrapped around his elbow.  Her skin was ghostly against the amber gold of his own, she noted absently, the pallor of her clan a stark reminder—Dalish, Tevinter.  Elf, human.  Freeborn relative of slaves, Altus.  She blinked and looked up at him instead.

“Yes, I assumed you were,” she said.  “But I have better alcohol and a fire going in my quarters, if you were interested.”

He grinned a little, a shadow of his usual mocking smirk.  “Why, Lavellan, how daring.  The wicked Magister closeted up alone with the pure and noble Inquisitor?  People will talk.”

“Let them,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.  “Cullen’s been dying for an excuse to drill the entire barracks until they drop, he thinks the new recruits are too undisciplined.  Besides, I have a whole crate of this really nice Tevinter white and a bottle of what Bull insists is some kind of Qunari liquor.  It could probably strip paint.”

“One does not get drunk on fine Tevinter wines.”

“One may not,” Rhosyn said with a grand wave of her arm.  “But I am, as you so astutely pointed out, the Inquisitor and therefore reserve the right to make dubious alcohol-related decisions in the privacy of my own quarters.  You’re welcome to join me and drink the paint stripper if your delicate sensibilities give you trouble about the wine.”  She paused, let it hang in the air pointedly, before adding, “Unless you’d rather field the questions in the tavern.”

Dorian opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again.  After a moment, he cleared his throat and said, “You make a compelling point.”

“Good,” Rhosyn said, and reached out to knock her knuckles against his shoulder pauldron.  “Put on something that looks less like immediate war and meet me in my quarters.  I’ll let you in.”

The smile he offered her was softer, more real than his smirk from before.  “As you say, Your Worship.”

“Go to hell,” she said equitably, and hid a smile behind her dark hair when it won a quick bark of a laugh from him.

* * *

“Well, I am fairly certain those two Orlesians who like to maintain a presence in the great hall are mere minutes from spreading rumors about our torrid love affair,” Dorian was already saying as he stepped through the door of Rhosyn’s quarters.  “So I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

Rhosyen gave a derisive snort, closing the door behind him.  “Well, I heard them discussing my betrothal yesterday.  I don’t think they’re exactly taken as prophets of truth.”

“You and your strapping young Templar are getting married?  How delightful.”  Rhosyn kept her face stoic, recalling all of Josephine’s increasingly desperate lessons in diplomacy, but Dorian smirked.  “You turn a lovely shade of scarlet when you blush, Lavellan.  How do you and Cullen get through a conversation without mistaking each other for mage lights?”

“He’s more awkward than I am,” Rhosyn said with a grin.  “Makes seeming calm easy by comparison.”

“There is that.”  Dorian followed her up the stairs and paused at the top, cocking his head and arching an eyebrow slowly.  “These are your quarters?”

This time, Rhosyn didn’t even try to keep a straight face, bringing one hand up over her eyes and groaning.  She’d never had more than a room in an inn to call her own before, and the finery of her room was almost as disorienting as the experience of being expected to command had been, after Haven burned.  “I tried to make them turn it into an office or _something_ , but Leliana said something about needing to show my value, and then I think Josephine decided she was being rude and said I should have somewhere to get away from…”  She took her hand from her face and waved it at the stairs, a broad and all-encompassing gesture at the whole of Skyhold.  “That.”

Dorian nodded, considering, and turned on the spot, looking at the doors thrown wide to the cold dusk on the balcony and the fine windows as he nodded slowly to himself.  “Hm.  You know, despite the cold, I think I agree with our noble ambassador on this subject.”  He gave Rhosyn a wan smile.  “You work too much.”

“For good reasons,” she said, meeting his gaze like a challenge.  She had become good at this, lately, and Dorian looked away first.  “Come on,” she said, nodding toward her desk as she walked to the balcony doors and latched them closed.  “I have a bottle of the wine and a bottle of the paint stripper, your choice.”

“My feelings about the fact that you are proposing a truly horrific abuse of Tevinter wine aside, I have concerns about what the Bull considers to be alcohol.  I think I’ll need to be a little drunk first,” he said, and Rhosyn smirked to herself. 

“That’s okay,” Rhosyn said as he claimed the green glass bottle of wine.  She wandered back into the pantry room attached to her chambers and claimed another bottle for herself, and when she returned Dorian had taken a seat on her couch, bottle dangling from his fingers.  “So,” she said, kicking off her boots and curling up beside him.  “Are there classes in Tevinter for how to look elegant while drinking straight from the bottle?”

Dorian spoke with an absolutely straight face.  “Of course.  One must only rest the bottle against the knee, unless one wishes to seduce a drinking partner, in which case the inner thigh is also acceptable.  And you hold the bottle thus, around the neck, not thus, around the belly.”  He cracked a grin then, adding, “And one never moves on to the mysterious Qunari alcohol until _after_ appreciating fine wine is no longer an option.”

Rhosyn laughed, working the cork out of her bottle and clinking it with slightly macabre cheer against his own.  “To family,” she said. 

“May they stay out of our way,” Dorian agreed.  He gave her an unusually shy glance through his lashes and added, “And to friends.  May we know them when we find them.”

Rhosyn smiled, and drank.  The wine was indeed _very_ good, crisp and sweet enough to cover the sourness of the alcohol, and when she lowered the bottle Dorian was examining his own with a bemused expression.

“This is one of the best vintages of the vineyards to the south of Qarinus,” he said.  “9:38, if I’m not mistaken.  How in the _hell_ did Josephine get an entire crate of this without putting Skyhold up for auction?  Because I don’t believe anything _in_ Skyhold is worth so much money.  Except possibly yourself, to certain Magisters.”

“Oh, she didn’t,” Rhosyn said, taking another drink.  “I found it on the Exalted Plains.”

“You found it.”

She grinned at him, lowering the bottle from her lips.  “I have a knack for finding things.”

“Yes, well, that much I’ve seen.  Do you just collect alcohol?”

“Yeah,” she said.  “I have a _particular_ knack for finding alcohol.  I hear this…ding.”  He blinked at her once, like a cat, and she shrugged.  “Hey, I didn’t say it made sense.  I hear a ding, and I follow it, and there’s alcohol on the other end.”

“A ‘ding,’” Dorian repeated.  “Is this a Dalish thing I’ve never heard of?  Do your people travel in order to find new and fascinating dings?”

“No,” Rhosyn said, taking another drink and savoring the cool slide of the wine.  “Just me.  I have no idea why it happens.”

Dorian shrugged, and drank again.  They were quiet for a while, the only sound the crackle of the fire in Rhosyn’s hearth and the wind battering itself against her windows.  The wine, stronger than most Fereldan or Orlesian wines, left warmth on her skin and turned the gold light tossed from the fire into thick honey that coiled around them almost tangibly.  Dorian, dressed in comparatively simple clothing rather than his usual enchanter’s armor, allowed himself to slide sideways, leaning against the arm of the couch as he kicked off his boots and tucked his feet up, and Rhosyn found herself leaning against his shoulder, the soft fabric of his shirt a pleasantly warm pillow.

He was the one to break the silence, most of the way through their respective first bottles.  “I was twelve when I knew I didn’t like girls.  I kept it from him for over a decade, and when he found out…I actually thought for a minute he was going to be all right with it.”  He laughed, bitter and sad.  “I _worshipped_ my father, you have to understand.  I suppose I might not have done so if I hadn’t grown up mostly at boarding schools after my magic manifested, but.”  He shrugged.  “It was the way it was done.”  He drank, tipping his head back to bare the long line of his throat, and lowered the bottle again.  He turned it between his hands, fidgeting with the label—written in Tevene and quite illegible to Rhosyn.  “Is it terrible that I still miss him, even after everything he did to me?”

Rhosyn nodded slowly, not a confirmation so much as an indication of through, sitting up properly and shuffling around until she was facing him, legs crossed.  “Did you know,” she said, “that I have had two conversations with my clan in five years?”

“And here I thought the Dalish were all tight-knit wandering families.”

“Most of us are,” she confirmed.  “Clan Lavellan included, I should add.  But I hadn’t spoken to them in years before my Keeper contacted me and asked me for help.  I agreed.  She sent me to gather information, claimed it would help save lives.”  Rhosyn closed her left hand into a fist, the strange hollowness of the Anchor turning into a half-pained prickle.  “I suppose she was almost right.”

“She sent you to the Conclave,” Dorian said.  “It must have been something of an honor.”

Rhosyn laughed, but it wasn’t as warm as she’d hoped.  “Oh, no, not really.  The Dalish aren’t really considered a force to be reckoned with, you know, so we don’t often end up in the reckoning when peace talks are happening.  I wasn’t sent because she thought I was any good as a spy or a diplomat—with good reason--”

“I had noticed that, yes.”

“—I was sent because I was expendable.  Disposable.  I’ve always been by and large disposable to them, that’s why I left.  After my coming of age,” she said, touching the _vallaslin_ on her face.  “I grew tired of being a hunter and nothing more.  I wasn’t a soldier, I wasn’t the head of a family, I wasn’t worth marrying, and I’m terrible with children.  _And_ I’m not a mage, so my talents were replaceable.”  She shrugged.  “They’re good people,” she said, echoing Dorian’s words from earlier.  “But I’m not the right set of things to be of great worth.  So I left, after I got tired of listening to my cousins call me useless.”

“And so you should have,” Dorian said, frowning.  “You’re one of the best fighters I’ve ever seen, magic or otherwise, why _wouldn’t_ they give you more responsibility?”

“My mother was an outcast,” she said.  “Not of Clan Lavellan, and her own clan had thrown her out when she left.  My father lost all his status to marry her.  I was considered something of a half-broken horse—useful to be hitched to a cart, dangerously unpredictable for anything else.  After my parents died…”  She shrugged.  “It wasn’t their fault.  I was just…never good enough.  And then, after I left, they only ever contacted me because they needed something—they needed a spy for the Conclave, someone who wouldn’t be missed in case of an assassination or capture.”  She drank again, letting the wine soothe the prickle of grief in his chest.  “And after they were wiped out, I still spent almost an entire day on the battlements trying not to cry.”

“They were still your family,” Dorian said.  “Even if they were terrible to you.”  Rhosyn raised her eyebrows at him over her bottle of wine, tipping it toward him.  “Ah,” he said.  “I see what you did there.  Very clever.”

“I have my moments.”  She waited until Dorian had drained the last of his bottle, then said quietly, “He’s still your father, even though what he did was monstrous.  You’re going to miss him.  Maybe forever.  Maybe not.  You might be able to hate him for what he did some day.  You might never.  If you decide you want to talk to him again, I’ll help you get in touch.  If you decide you’d rather have him dead, I have people who can make that happen.  So for the moment…”  Rhosyn sighed.  “For the moment, maybe just let yourself grieve what he should have been.”

Dorian sat in silence for a moment before he gave a damp-sounding laugh.  “Does the wisdom come with the prophet thing, or what?”

“No, that’s mine,” she said, smiling a little.  “I earned it.”  She sat quietly for a moment as Dorian looked down at his empty bottle, face cast into shadow by the fire, then said, “Do you want another bottle of wine?”

He sniffed, then chuckled a little.  “I think we could probably ante up to your mystery liquor, if you wanted.”

Rhosyn started to stand, and Dorian caught her wrist before she could get too far.  “Lavellan,” he started, still looking at the floor.  “Rhosyn.  Thank you.  For coming with me.  And for getting me out of there.”

“Of course, Dorian,” Rhosyn said, twisting her hand so that his fingers slid from her wrist into her palm.  She gripped his hand and he looked up at her at last.  His eyes glittered, a few sparse tracks of wetness on his cheeks, and she tried to offer him the best smile she could manage.  “Us outcasts have to stick together, right?”

He gave her a smile in return, and it was even a fairly good one.  “The Inquisition is mostly outcasts at this point.  Cullen the runaway Templar, Cassandra the rogue Seeker, Sera the…whatever Sera is.  Wayward Grey Wardens, strange mercenary companies, apostate mages, expatriate Tevinters, and the whole mess headed up by a Dalish elf…all you need is someone to announce that they’re secretly an outcast of the _gods_ and you’ll have the full set.”

Rhosyn laughed.  “Like I said.  If we didn’t stick together, where would any of us go?”

Dorian gave her one of his most piercing looks, the kind of examination that reminded her just how fire-bright the mind behind his snark and vanity really was.  “I think, my dear Inquisitor,” he said slowly, “that we might all still go to you, and wait for you to find us a cause.”


	6. planet earth turns slowly (teach me how to dance)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavellan is trying to keep the Inquisition running by any means necessary, but with Halamshiral closing in, Josephine has other concerns. Namely, comportment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The VERY FIRST THING that popped out of my mouth during the ballroom scene at Halamshiral was "Oh my god who taught this Dalish catastrophe how to dance at an imperial Orlesian ball" and thus, a fic. This is heavily based on my own hilariously inept dancing, although I'm more Cullen--technically passable but INCREDIBLY awkward--than the Inquisitor here.
> 
> Also, yes, I did name the chapter from Fireflies from Owl City because it's a great song.

“Inquisitor, this is _vitally_ important,” Josephine said, clearly inches from burying her fingers in her finely braided hair in desperation.

Rhosyn scowled, crossing her arms.  “Can’t I just stand off to the side and look impressive for the benefit of the populace?  I’ve really gotten looking impressive down to an art lately.”

“This is not a mission among soldiers, Inquisitor!” Josephine cried, pacing.  “This is Orlais, this is _Halamshiral_!  I have two months to turn you into a dancer worthy of the Empress’ own court, _please_ cooperate with me and show me how much you know.”

Rhosyn pursed her lips.  “I can’t dance,” she finally said, and Josephine came to an abrupt halt, as if cast into ice on the spot.  “I mean, I can!” Rhosyn hurried to add, hoping to erase the expression of blank horror on the ambassador’s face.  “Just not court dances.  I only know circle dances, and there’s not really _steps_ to that, just…holding hands and going with the crowd.”  This did not seem to ease Josephine’s concerns.

“You…cannot dance,” Josephine said slowly, dazedly.  “At all.”

“I’m a hunter from an itinerant Dalish clan, when would I have learned to _dance_?”

“It is all right,” Josephine said absently, drifting forward to pat Rhosyn’s shoulder. 

“I don’t have to dance?”

“Oh no,” Josephine said, distracted.  “This simply means that I will need help.  I had planned to teach you myself, but to start from _scratch_ …no, you will need a partner who can follow instructions while I offer critique.  One moment, Inquisitor.”  She hurried to her door and stepped through the anteroom, yanking the door to the Great Hall open with unnecessary force.  Rhosyn watched over her shoulder in amusement as she caught a passing man by the collar, one of Leliana’s scouts, and towed him inside by main force.

“Uh—Lady Ambassador,” the scout said, taking the whole experience with admirable grace.  “What can I do for you?”

“Dorian, the Tevinter mage, you know him?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do.”

“Good, good,” Josephine said, hand still tight around the fabric of his shirt.  “Tell him I require his presence immediately.”

“Um, ma’am, Lady Nightingale sent me to--”

“You may tell Leliana that she can deal with me personally.  Finding Dorian is your first priority.”  Josephine released the man and made a delicate ‘shoo’ motion with one hand.  “Go on.”

“Ye-yes, Lady Ambassador, right away.”  He left with the air of a man who had just witnessed an undefeated fortress shattered with a single blow, and Josephine closed the door firmly behind him, turning back to Rhosyn.  “Now,” Josephine said, scrutinizing her closely.  “The first thing we will have to deal with is your stance.”

“Is this not fine?” Rhosyn asked, dropping her hands to her sides and looking down at her feet.  They didn’t look out of place—one forward, one back, letting her move quickly in any direction, just as they always were.

“Only if you’re planning to start a fight,” Josephine said.  She gestured down at herself.  “Stand lightly, with your feet apart.”

Rhosyn felt herself starting to scowl again.  “I think I’d rather the fight.”

Josephine sighed.  “Yes,” she said in dismay.  “That is what I’m afraid of.”

It took another twenty minutes for Dorian to arrive, already looking highly amused as he stepped through the door.

“Ambassador,” he said with a nod.  “Inquisitor.  May I ask why a very stressed young man said that you were looking for me at the price of his life?”

“She’s being overdramatic,” Rhosyn started, and Josephine cut her off crisply.

“The Inquisitor doesn’t know how to dance.”

Dorian frowned.  “Are you serious?”

“I’m going to put both of you in the dungeons,” Rhosyn said calmly.

“Mm, no, Josephine has a point here,” Dorian said, shaking his head.  “You can’t go to the Winter Palace without knowing how to dance.  That does not, however, answer the question of why I am _here_ rather than trying to rescue Cartus’ _Compendium of Necromancy_ from that judgmental bastard.  He is making _notations_ ,” Dorian complained, looking to Rhosyn with an expression of disgust.  “The man couldn’t make proper use of that book with the entire College of Magi at his disposal.”

“Dorian, it is vital to the Inquisition’s ongoing success that we appreciate and understand the importance of disparate schools of magic, and set aside old biases,” Josephine recited, pinching the bridge of her nose.  Rhosyn had heard her say something similar almost daily, to any and all of the mages at some point.  “I would consider it a _personal_ favor if you would stop questioning Solas’ knowledge base.”  Dorian sniffed, and didn’t reply.  “And you are here because I need someone who can take instructions while I critique the Inquisitor.  It will be a good opportunity to ensure that you know Orlesian dances, as well.”

Dorian arched an aristocratic eyebrow, as if to ask if Josephine doubted his ability to perform social graces to perfection, every time, but didn’t protest.  “Do we all need to be able to dance, then?”

“Yes,” Josephine said firmly.  “I will be checking that everyone involved knows how to comport themselves.”

“Even the Bull?”

“The Iron Bull has made the very astute comment that if anyone asks him to dance, we should assume immediate treachery and therefore the appropriate response would be men to arms, not a circuit on the dance floor,” Josephine said dryly.  “Orlesians are rather intimidated by Qunari at the best of times.  And besides, he is Ben-Hassrath, I would be quite surprised if he didn’t know at least the basics of dancing.  I expect you know how to dance, Dorian, and Varric’s skills are almost concerningly comprehensive in the area, which just leaves the Inquisitor.”

“Ah, so Rhosyn’s advisors are accounted for?”

“Cassandra…disdains formal affairs and said that we wouldn’t see her there unless the Inquisitor asked her to attend as a bodyguard,” Josephine said with a frustrated twist of her lips.  “I myself trained as a bard in Val Royeaux, and Leliana…”

“Is Leliana, and knows all,” Rhosyn supplied.

“Yes, thank you, Inquisitor.”

“And I take it the Commander isn’t coming?” Dorian asked, arching that eyebrow again.

Josephine shook her head, waving a hand.  “Oh, no, of course he is.  It’s vital that we demonstrate our military strength, preferably with someone who won’t be taken in by the Game, and Cullen…”

“Is paranoid,” Rhosyn finished with a bit of a fond smile.

“Is _rightfully cautious_ , given his past,” Josephine corrected, a little wild-eyed.  Rhosyn supposed that she did lack the soul of a diplomat—the right turn of phrase usually escaped her in exchange for sarcasm.  Orlesians responded reasonably well to sarcasm in her experience, though, and Dorian assured her that she seemed perfectly backstabbing as long as she didn’t get too blunt.  So she was sure this would all be fine.

“But he won’t be expected to dance?” Dorian checked.

“Well, I expect he’ll turn down any nobles who ask,” Josephine said.  “But I’m sure he knows how, in case someone vitally important asks him.”

Dorian laughed outright at that.  “He most certainly does _not_.”

Josephine didn’t have a skin tone that gave itself to pallor, but she took on a distinctly grey cast, gaze going distant.  “I was sure he told me that he could dance.”

Still smirking, Dorian cut a quick glance at Rhosyn, then looked back at Josephine to ask, “Would you like me to collect our fine Commander to take my place for this lesson, then?”

“Maker’s breath, yes, please do,” she said, eyes still flicking over some invisible chart of information—who was and wasn’t safe for Orlesian presence, Rhosyn expected.  Josephine had almost cried with relief when Rhosyn handed over the final list of those she was bringing to the Winter Palace, bearing neither Sera nor Cole.  “And tell him that I will have him married off to the silliest young thing I can get my hands on, if he does not cooperate with this production.  Ah, with your permission, of course, Inquisitor,” she added with a glance at Rhosyn.

Rhosyn felt the touch of heat that meant her skin was coloring red, and she was deeply relieved that her past weeks in the Exalted Plains had turned her cheeks ruddier than ever, hiding some of the blush that always surfaced when she was forcibly reminded that her personal life had become remarkably public of late.  “I, um.  I’m sure he’d deserve it.”

“In fact,” Josephine said musingly.  “I think I shall make that a general statement.  The first person to disrupt the activities with a diplomatic incident will be married off for political power, and do remember that Orlais arranges marriages for very young heirs indeed.”

“Andraste’s tits, Josephine,” Rhosyn said, alarmed.

“Yes, that kind of diplomatic incident exactly,” Josephine said with a dangerous glitter in her eye.  “Do try to limit yourself to creeping through the shadows and killing the odd Venatori agent, Inquisitor.  Halamshiral is far better equipped for snooping and assassinations than cursing in public.”

“Ha!” Dorian shouted as he started for the door.  “I’m getting homesick already.”

* * *

The only comfort was that Cullen was even more uncomfortable with dancing than Rhosyn was, although he was reasonably more successful.  Josephine sighed for the hundredth time as Rhosyn fumbled a step rather than completing the circle, fetching up against Cullen’s shoulder with a slightly manic cackle of laughter.  It wasn’t even worth being embarrassed anymore. 

“So,” Josephine said, perched on the edge of her desk with her face buried in her hands and a lute on the wood beside her as Cullen carefully rebalanced Rhosyn on her feet.  “Cullen, you have the technical ability to perform the dance, but you look like you are being tortured, and I expect that if you tried to hold a conversation, you might bite your own tongue in half.  Inquisitor Lavellan most certainly does _not_ have the technical ability to perform the dance, but at least she looks like she can speak without doing herself injury.  If I could somehow combine you two together, I would get a single competent dancer.”

“Or you could end up with the worst of both,” Cullen said dryly.

“Court dances are terrible,” Rhosyn observed.  “I may be a poor excuse for a Dalish anything, but I can guarantee that I’ll be a worse excuse for a courtier.  I’m surprised you haven’t asked if I’d be willing to mask my _vallaslin_ in order to buy a little more time before I ruin everything.”

“Oh, Inquisitor, I would never!” Josephine gasped.

“I know, Josie, I was joking.  Don’t suppose I could get you to call me Rhosyn, by the way?”  Rhosyn didn’t wait for a response, merely sighed and scrubbed a hand over her face.  “At least Cullen will be able to turn people down,” she said dismally.  Cullen gave her a sympathetic look, a light touch on the arm.

“I’m afraid I won’t be much help, learning these,” Cullen said, giving an apologetic shrug to the room at large.  “Fereldan dances are much less…elaborate.  At least, the ones I’m familiar with.”

“Let’s do those, then,” Rhosyn said, and grinned, the same manic smile that led to trouble in the field.  “We can call it cultural exchange, take them to Orlais and dazzle everyone with our connection to the common folk.”

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” Josephine said, and Rhosyn’s smile vanished.

“I can barely remember the steps to _one_ dance, and now you want me to learn another?”

“You are not struggling to remember the steps, Inquisitor,” Josephine said with a frown.  “You can’t keep the rhythm with a partner.  You spend too much time fighting to remember not to close the distance at the first opportunity.  Commander, can you lead in a basic waltz?”

“I haven’t in quite some time, but it’s not complex,” he said, wary.  “Why?”

“Because we are going to teach the Inquisitor how to be half of a dance rather than half of a fight,” Josephine said, determined.  “I will find someone who can play a Fereldan waltz, and you, Inquisitor Lavellan,” she continued, pointing a dire finger at Rhosyn, “will be able to dance it by the end of the day if it kills us all.”  She swept out of the room in a cloud of gold and violet, leaving Rhosyn and Cullen in her wake.

“I’m going to get us all killed,” Rhosyn said, dragging a hand down her face.  “Maybe someone will have the common decency to open a Rift and try to kill me before I have to dance with anyone too important.”

Cullen’s brow was furrowed, concern casting his face into harsh lines, and he caught Rhosyn’s hand by the wrist before she could rake it through her hair.  “It’ll be all right,” he said.  “You can figure this out.  You _know_ the steps to the dance, you just need to be able to stay with the rhythm.”  He hesitated, sliding his hand down to her own, then said, “Here.”

His grip on her hand was gentle, but inexorable, drawing her close to him.  This time, instead of the stiff grip of the Orlesian dance, he rested one hand on her hip, the other still tangled with her fingers.  Rhosyn settled her free hand on his shoulder, glancing up to see him nod in confirmation.  She fingered the soft cloth of his shirt, unused to seeing him out of his armor even after their months of knowing each other and weeks of…whatever they were doing, and tried not to give away her nerves.

“I don’t think I’m going to be any better at this,” she said, and Cullen grinned a little bit.

“Well,” he said quietly.  “If you really do end up stepping on the Empress’ feet, or something similarly disastrous, just think, I’ll certainly be making an even worse fool of myself trying to hold conversation with a bunch of nobles.  Like this,” he added, and nudged her backward.  “Left, right, turn--”

“Oh, Maker,” Rhosyn muttered, trying to look down at their feet without pulling too hard against Cullen’s grip.  Left, right—no, fuck, wrong foot.  Either Cullen’s boots were very sturdy indeed or he was just an exceptionally good sport about having her step on his toes.  Or, of course, there was the fact that she was probably too light to make much of an impact, as the Iron Bull had observed at one point while lifting her bodily out of a ravine.  “I should make the lot of you learn a circle dance.  Much easier.”

“It’s all right,” Cullen said, turning the pair of them again.  “You’re doing just fine.”

“I am not,” she said, tone full of mild outrage as she stumbled over her own feet again.  Her maniacal good humor from earlier had shattered all at once, like a window breaking, and now she was just tired, almost tearful with frustration and anxiety.  Cullen’s hand at her back, broad and warm and distracting, caught her as she tripped and held her steady against him.  “Blessed Andraste, just kill me now,” she prayed, giving up and leaning forward to let her forehead thud against his chest.  Cullen startled, in his distinctly Templar way—rather than a dramatic jump like most people, Templars startled by going totally, entirely still—and hesitantly settled both hands on her back, running one up and down her spine soothingly.  His skin still smelled faintly of ozone, the telltale scent of lyrium even after his weeks of withdrawal, and it was steadying, somehow.

Rhosyn sighed, turning so that her cheek rested on his shoulder instead, and he tucked his chin onto the crown of her head.  “I’m going to ruin everything.”

“You’re really not,” Cullen said, still stroking her back.  He caught her cheek and turned her face up to look at him, and offered her his small, crooked smile, pulled off center by the scar splitting his lip.  “And I’m sure there will be enough machinations and attempted murder to keep you busy.  You won’t be obliged to dance the entire night away.”

Rhosyn laughed, weak and a little damp, and asked, “Is it a sign of terrible things that I’m more at ease with demons and homicide than court manners?”

“No, it’s a sign of good sense,” Cullen said, dry as dust.  “Josephine is the maddest person in this entire fortress, and I say that knowing Sera.  Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to try something.  Put your arms around my neck?”  Rhosyn did, linking her fingers together, and yelped in surprise when his hands closed around her waist to pick her up, the ground vanishing from under her feet.  “This is how my sisters learned to keep time,” he said as he balanced her carefully on top of his own feet, his arms firm around her waist.

Startled, Rhosyn burst into a much more genuine laugh, clinging to his shoulders.  “I feel like a child.”  Smiling at him, now rather closer to eye level, she added, “I could get used to this, though.”  And she pecked a kiss to his cheek, watching his cheeks color with a grin. 

“I, ah.”  He cleared his throat, his voice a deep rumble at such close quarters.  “With your permission?”

“Oh, you have it, Commander.”  He smiled at her, small and a little shy, and touched his lips to the very corner of her mouth as he stepped into the dance.

This was, Rhosyn had to admit, an improvement, pressed against Cullen’s chest with her arms around his neck and his smile close to her cheek.  He was humming an old song, a ballad she knew, about a soldier and his noble lady-love—tragic, ending with her death from the Blight and his sacrifice to protect her holding from a demon, but beautiful.  Now that Rhosyn wasn’t obsessing over where to put her feet, she could feel how the dance steps fit into the tune.  _One_ -two-three- _one-_ two-three.

“Better?” Cullen asked quietly, and she nodded. 

“I’m sorry I panicked,” she said, still letting Cullen carry her through the steps of the dance. 

“If that’s your version of panic, I think Thedas is in better hands than you let on, Inquisitor,” Cullen murmured. 

“Practice,” she said with a rueful twist to her lips.  “I’m sure I’ll panic properly on the road to the Winter Palace, for what it’s worth.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Cullen said, kissing her forehead.  “Orlesians love sarcasm, you’ll dazzle them.”

“You’re supposed to be teaching me to dance, not encouraging my sharp tongue,” she said.  “Josephine will have your head.”

“Or my hand, apparently,” he said dryly, and Rhosyn laughed again.  Cullen came to a halt and smiled, looking pleased with himself.  “That’s better.  You face down demons weekly, the Orlesian court is nothing to be afraid of.”

“Oh, hush,” Rhosyn instructed, swatting at his shoulder, and carefully stepped down onto the ground, still pressed close but standing on her own two feet.  “Let’s try this for real, shall we?”  She picked up the song he had been humming at the second verse, aloud this time, and Cullen paused for barely a moment before he joined it.  Neither of them would ever be world class singers, but their voices complemented each other well enough, and Josephine’s office had good acoustics, all stone and high ceilings.  As they stepped into the dance Rhosyn kept her eyes firmly fixed on Cullen’s face, rather than her own feet.  It was easier, this time, not to overthink it and misplace something.  It wasn’t the intricacies of Orlais, but it was undeniably dancing.

As they turned, she saw the door to the anteroom open just enough to catch a glimpse of Josephine’s eyes, before it creaked closed again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr, etc, etc](http://words-writ-in-starlight.tumblr.com/), I love everyone who has commented on this self-gratification nonsense, you're all delightful.

**Author's Note:**

> I am on [the Tumblr](http://words-writ-in-starlight.tumblr.com/) and if you have a burning desire to see a particular scene in this fic, you are WELCOME to request it. Thus far, I have nine, including a lyrium withdrawal scene, a post-Halward Pavus scene, and an Adamant Battle scene, among others.


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